

















<* ♦'TV.' .0^ o. 'o,,* J\ ^ ♦'TV.' .0^ o. '••»• 
















'V)^ '0,1*' A ^. 






^^. ♦••^* -5>^ ,. 







v^.'i^* %. -ft?^ •i'^' ^ v^\»Jm^> % -ftp -*• 


































'oK 



'^O' 









■^.<f 



,.^V •.^^.- y-V^ -.1 












"^^4^ 





%<^ 




































*' ^. 










• • * *<^^ 



<»^-^^ *^ ^^6 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



HISTORICAL EXiOIINATIOlV 



OF THE STATE OF SOCIETy IN 



WESTERN AFRICA, 



AS FORMED BY 



PAGANISM AND MUHAMMEDANISM, SLAVERY, THE 
SLAVE TRADE, AND PIRACY, 



AND OF THE 



REMEDIAL INFLUENCE OF COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



BY JOSEPH TRACY, 

Secretary of the Massachusetts Colonization Society, 



PUBLISHED BY THE BOARD OF MANAGERS. ^' ^^ 



FIFTH EDITION, 

REVISED AND ENLARGED. 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 24 CONGRESS STREET. 

1846. 



^ 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



PART I. 



The question stated. — Proceedings of Missionary Boards and Colonial Governments. 
— Charges against the Government of American Colonies at an end. — Charges 
against the Moral Influence of the Colonists as Individuals, and Mode of meet- 
ing them. 

" If the experiment, in its more remote consequences, should ulti- 
mately tend to the diffusion of similar blessings ^through those vast 
and unnumbered tribes yet obscured in primeval darkness, reclaim 
the rude wanderer from a life of wretchedness to civilization and 
humanity, and convert the blind idolater from gross and abject super- 
stitions to the holy charities, the sublime morality and humanizing 
discipline of the gospel, the nation or the individual that shall have 
taken the most conspicuous lead in achieving the benevolent enter- 
prise, will have raised a monument of that true and imperishable 
glory, founded in the moral approbation and gratitude of the human 
race, unapproachable to all but the elected mstruments of divine 
beneficence." 

Such was the language addressed by the American Colonization 
Society to the Congress of the United States, in a memorial presented 
two weeks after the formation of the Society. To the hope wliich 
these words express, we are indebted for a large and valuable jjart of the 
countenance and aid which we have received. For some years past, 
however, this hope has been pronounced a delusion. Men who strenu- 
ously contend that the colored people of this country are fit for 
social equality and intercourse with our white population, assert, not 
very consistently, that when settled in Africa, they corrupt the morals 
of the idolatrous natives, and actually impede the progress of civiliza- 
tion and Christianity. 

These assertions have had the greater influence, because they have 
been thought to be corroborated by the representations of American 
Missionaries, laboring for the conversion of the heathen in and around 
the colonial possessions. These missionaries, it is said, represent the 
colonies, or the colonists, or something connected with colonization, 
as serious obstacles to the success of their labors. In this way, some 
of our former friends have been led to disbelieve, and still greater 
numbers to doubt, the utility of our labors. The interests of the So- 
ciety, therefore, and of the colony, and of Africa, and of Christianity, 
demand an investigation of the subject. 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



The Charges against tlie Colonies. 



It would be easier to meet these charges, if we could ascertain exact- 
ly what they are. But this has hitherto proved impracticable. Com- 
mon fame has reported, that the missionaries of the American, the 
Presbyterian, and the Protestant Episcopal Boards at Cape Palmas, 
united, some time in 1842, in a joint representation to their respective 
Boards, containing serious charges of the nature above mentioned.* 
It was reported, also, that this document was confidential ; and that, for 
this reason, and especially as three Boards and their missionaries were 
interested in it, no one Board had a right to divulge its contents. As 
this was said to be the principal document on the subject, and to con- 
tain the substance of all the rest, the Secretary of the American Colo- 
nization Society, at an early date, applied to the Secretaries of those 
three Boards for a copy, or at least for the perusal of it ; but the request 
was not granted. We do not charge this refusal upon the Secretaries 
as a fault, or even as a mistake. We only mention it as the occasion 
of a serious inconvenience to us. It has also been reported, that about 
the same time, a certain pastor received a letter from one of those 
missionaries, which was confidential in this sense; that it might be 
circulated from hand to hand, and used in various ways to our preju- 
dice, but must not be ])rinted nor copied. This report of its charac- 
ter, of course, precluded any application for a copy. 

Now, how can any man answer a report, that some or all of several 
very respectable persons three thousand miles off, have said something 
to his disadvantage? A man may be seriously injured by such a re- 
port ; but in ordinary cases, he must bear the injury as best he may, 
and "live down" its influence if he can. In order to reply, he 
needs to know authentically who his accusers are, and what things 
they testify against them. 

Let us see, however, whether industry and a good cause may not 
extricate us, even from a difliculty like this. We may learn something 
of the grounds of complaint, from the proceedings of the Boards of 
Missions; and we may learn from common fame, what common fame 
has led people to suspect. From all that we have heard, the complaints 
appear to be of two classes; those which relate to the action of the 
colonial governments, and those which relate to the influence of the 
colonists as individuals. We will consider them in their order. 

Several years since, there was a controversy between the colonial 
government of Liberia and the superintendent of the Methodist Mission 
there, growing out of a dispute concerning duties on goods imported 
by the superintendent for the purpose of trade. But that whole mat- 
ter was soon settled. Another sii])erintendcnt was sent out ; and since 
his death, the first has gone back, with express instructions to avoid 

* Scirnc liavc rofcivcd the rrronrons imi)ressinn, that all the AniPricari missionaries 
in l.ihrria nniled in this rfprcsciilalidii. In fact, no missionary in .iny part of Li- 
beria I'roper, — tiiat is, none in any place under tlic care of the American Coloni- 
zation Society, — had any concern in it, or any knowlcdire of it. 'Die nearest 
station occnpied by any of it« reputed Binrner!», was ninety miles beyond the south- 
ernmost setUenient of Liberia Proper. Some of them had .spent a fow day.s at 
Monrovia as visiters; but for their knowledge of any settlement except Cape 
I'almas, they were almost wiiolly dependent on hearsay. 'I'heir representations 
concerning lh<^ r)tlier settlements, it they made any, are therefore of little value, 
and no official actmn has been founded on them. 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



Source and Settlement of the Difficulties. 



his former errors. It is not known that the government of Liberia 
has ever had any other collision with any missionary, or missionary 
society. 

It appears from the Report of the American Board for 1842, that 
the missionaries complained, and, as the Board thought, with reason, 
of several laws of the Maryland colony at Cape Palmas, where the 
mission was located. It was understood that substantially the same 
views were entertained by the missionaries of the Episcopal Church, 
stationed there, and by the missionaries of the Presbyterian Church, 
who were spending their season of acclimation at Cape Palmas, pre- 
paratory to commencing their labors at Settra Kroo ; and also by the 
Presbyterian and Episcopalian Boards. 

To this it is a sufficient reply, that we have nothing to do with Cape 
Palmas. The colony there is a distinct colony, with a government of 
its own. It was planted, and is sustained, by the Maryland Coloniza- 
tion Society, which is not a branch of the American, nor auxiliary to 
it, nor any way connected with it or under its influence. To bring a 
charge against our colony on account of the laws of Cape Palmas, is 
as unjust as it would be to blame the government of England for the 
laws of France. But this difficulty, too, has been settled. A few 
words will explain its origin and its termination. — It was from the be- 
ginning the policy of that colony, as of ours, not to exterminate or 
expel the natives, but to amalgamate them and the colonists into one 
people. The missions at Cape Palmas, however, were commenced as 
missions to the heathen natives, and not to the colonists. They there- 
fore had a tendency to raise up a native interest, distinct from that of 
the colonists; to keep the two classes separate, and make them rivals 
to each other, instead of uniting them as one people. In this respect, 
the policy of the missions was in direct conflict with that of the colo- 
ny ; and this was the true source of the conflict of opinion and feeling. 
The case may be better understood, by viewing it in contrast with the 
Methodist mission in Liberia. That mission is not sent to the heathen 
exclusively, but to all the inhabitants of the territory on which they 
labor. Of course, all who come under its influence, colonists or na- 
tives, are drawn to the same religious meetings ; all are gathered into 
the same churches;' or if children, brought into the same schools. 
The whole influence of the mission goes to make natives and colonists 
one people, and thus coincides with the policy of the colony. The 
contrary policy at Cape Palmas naturally led to alienation of feeling, 
and to acts of both the government and the missionaries, which were 
mutually unpleasant, and some of which appear to have been unjusti- 
fiable. The mission of the American Board was removed, for this 
and other reasons, to the Gaboon river. The Presbyterian missionaries 
soon proceeded to the place of their destination, at Settra Kroo. That 
of the Episcopal Board was continued and strengthened, and has made 
peace by avoiding the original cause of dissension. The Report of 
that Board for the year 1844, says : — " The relations between the col- 
onists and the missionaries at Cape Palmas during the past year appear 
to have been of a friendly character ; and as the desire of the latter to 
promote, so far as in them lies, the moral and religious interests of the 
colonists becomes more and more apparent, it is believed that no ob- 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



Moral Influence of the Colonists. 



stacles to the beneficial influence of the mission will be interposed." 
This is a very explicit statement, not only of the fact, that in the judg- 
ment of the Episcopal Board, no such " obstacles" note exist, or are 
expected to exist hereafter, but of the change which has led to their 
removal. 

At present, therefore, the government of Cape Palmas, as well as 
that of Liberia, stands unaccused and unsuspected of any hostile bear- 
ing upon the cause of missions. 

The charge against the influence of individual colonists is less easily 
ascertained, and therefore less easily met; but by a somewhat diligent 
inquiry, we believe that we know, very nearly, the substance of it. 
According to our best information, it is not denied that a larger propor- 
tion of the colonists are regular communicants in the churches, than 
in almost any other community in the world ; nor is it pretended that 
Sabbath-breaking, profaneness, or intemperance are very prevalent. It 
is said, however, that most of their religion is mere animal excitement ; 
that many of the communicants are self-deceived or hypocrites ; that 
cases of church discipline for immorality are numerous ; that many of 
the colonists are lazy and improvident; that some make hard bargains 
with the natives; that many of them feel no interest in the conversion 
or improvement of the native population; that they neglect the 
instruction of hired laborers from native families ; that, by the prac- 
tice of various immoralities, they bring reproach upon Christianity ; 
and finally, that their children are more difficult to manage in school, 
than the children of the natives. 

Now, to a certain extent, all this is doubtless true. The world 
never saw, and probably never will see, a Christian community so 
pure, that such complaints against it would be wholly false. That 
the misconduct of Christians brings reproach upon the gospel and is a 
liiiidrancc to the progress of piety, is a standing topic of lamentation, 
even in the most religious parts of New England ; and who doubts that, 
in a certain sense, there is some truth in it? Much more may we ex- 
pect it to be true among a people whose opportunities for improvement 
have been no better than the Liberians have enjoyed. We readily 
concede, tiiat these cotnplaints have too much foundation in facts. 

But who, that understands Africa, would on this account, pronounce 
the colony a hindrance to the progress of Christian piety, morality and 
civilization? It cannot be, that those who make such objections, or 
those who yield to them, know what that part of the world was, before 
the influence of the colony was felt there. Let th;it be once under- 
stood, and the thought that a colony of free colored people from this 
country could demoralize tlie natives, or render the work of missions 
among them more difficult, will be effectually banished. Let us 
inquire, then, what Western Africa was, when first known to Euro- 
peans; what influences have since been operating there; what effects 
those influences are known to have produced ; what was the character 
of the countrv when the colony was first planted ; and what changes 
have resulted I'rom its existence. 

In pursuing this iiKjuiry, we must gather our facts from tlic whole 
coast of U|)ppr Guinea, extending from the mouth of the Senegal to 
the Bight of Benin ; for with partial exceptions among the Muham- 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



Testimony of Arabian Geographers, A. D. 902 — 968. 



medaii tribes near the Senegal, the people are substantially one ; the 
same in their physical character, their government, their social condi- 
tion, their superstitions, manners, and morals; and the same influences 
have been at work among them all. In the middle portion, extending 
from Sierra Leone to Elmina and including Liberia, this identity of 
original character and modifying influence is most complete, and 
illustrations taken from any part of it, are commonly applicable to the 
whole. The correctness of these remarks will be more manifest as 
we proceed. 



PART II. 



Discovery of Guinea. — Rise, Progress and Influence of the Slave Trade. — Preva- 
lence and Influence of Piracy. — Ciiaracter of llie Natives before the influence 

of Colonization was felt. 

• 

We shall not dwell upon the full length portraits of negroes on 
Egyptian monuments three thousand years old, because their interpre- 
tation migiit be disputed; though their dress, their attitudes, their 
banjos, and every indication of character, show that they were then 
substantially what they are now. We shall pass over Ethiopian 
slaves in Roman and Carthaginian history; because it might be diffi- 
cult to prove that they came from the region under consideration. We 
will begin with Ibn Haukal, the Arabian Geographer, who wrote while 
the Saracen Ommiades ruled in Spain, and before the founding of 
Cairo in Egypt ; that is, between A. D. 902 and 968. 

Ibn Haukal very correctly describes the " land of the blacks," as an 
extensive region, with the Great Desert on the North, the coast of the 
ocean to the South, and not easily accessible, except from the West ; 
and as inhabited by people whose skins are of a finer and deeper 
black than that of any other blacks. He mentions the trade from the 
land of the blacks, through the Western part of the Great Desert, to 
Northern Africa, in gold and slaves ; which found their way thence to 
other Muhammedan regions. "The white slaves," he says, "come 
from Andalus," [Spain] " and damsels of great value, such as are sold 
for a thousand dinars or more."* 

* This expression must not be taken too strictly. Sicily also furnished many 
Christian slaves, and others were obtained from other parts of Europe. Since the 
expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the Muhammedans of Northern Africa have 
been able to obtain but few Christian slaves, except by piracy. They however 
continued to do what thej' could. Their corsairs, principally from Algiers on the 
Barbary coast and Salee on the Western coast of Morocco, seized the vessels and 
enslaved the crews of all Christian nations trading in those seas. To avoid it, 
nearly, if not quite, all the maritime nations of Christendom paid them an annual 
tribute. The United States, we believe, was the first nation that refused to pay this 
tribute; and this refusal led to wars with Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers. Several Eu- 
ropean powers have since followed our example. In 1815, the Emperor of Moroc- 
co stipulated by treaty, that British subjects should no longer be made slaves in his 
dominions. Several of the southern powers of Europe still pay this tribute. At 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



134G — 1415. — French Pietenaiong — Portuguese Discoveries. — Pope's Bull. 

Ibn Batuta, of Tangier, after returning from his travels in the east, 
visited Tombuctoo and other Muhanimedan places on the northern 
border of the negro country in 1352. The pagans beyond them en- 
slaved each other, sold each other to the Muhammedans, or were en- 
slaved by them, as has been done ever since. Some of them, he 
learned, were cannibals ; and when one of the petty monarchs sent an 
embassy to another, a fatted slave, ready to be killed and eaten, was a 
most acceptable present. 

Of Christian nations, the French claim the honor of first discover- 
ing the coast of Guinea. It is said that the records of Dieppe, in 
Normandy, show an agreement of certain merchants of that place and 
Rouen, in the year 1365, to trade to that coast. Some place the com- 
mencement of that trade as early as 1346. Having traded along the 
Grain Coast, and made establishments at Grand Sesters and other 
places, they doubled Cape Palmas, explored the coast as far as Elmina, 
and commenced a fortress there in 1383. In 1387, Elmina was en- 
larged, and a chapel built. The civil wars about the close of that 
century were injurious to commerce. In 1413, the company found 
its stock diminishing, and gradually abandoned the trade, till only 
their establishment on the Senegal was left. There are some circum- 
stances which give plausibility to this account ; yet it is doubted by 
some writers, even in France, and generally disbelieved or neglected 
by others. 

The account of the discovery by the Portuguese is more authentic ; 
and its origin must be narrated with some particularity. 

During the centuries of war between the Christians of Spain and 
their Moorish invaders and oppressors, an order of knights was insti- 
tuted, called "The Order of Christ." Its object was, to maintain 
the war against the Moors, and also "to conquer and convert all who 
denied the truth of their holy religion." To this, the knights were 
consecrated by a solemn vow. Henry of Loraine was rewarded for his 
services in these wars with the gift of Portugal, and of whatever else he 
should take from the Moors. Under his descendants, Portugal be- 
came a kingdom; and John I., having expelled or slaughtered the last 
of the Moors in his dominions, passed into Africa and took Ceuta in 
1415. He was attended in this expedition by his son, Henry, Duke 
of Viseo and Grand Master of the Order of Christ. Henry distin- 
guished himself during the siege; remained sometime in Africa to 
carry on the war, and learned that beyond the Great Desert were the 
country of the Senegal and the Jaloffs. With the double design of 
conquering infidels and finding a passage to India by sea, having 
already pushed his discoveries to Cape Bojador, he obtained a bull from 
Pope Alartin V., granting to the Portuguese an exclusive right in all 
the islands they already possessed, and also in all territories they 

this (lay, the Turks and Persians obtain " black slaves" from the interior of 
Africa, by ihe way of Nubia and Egypt, and by sua from Zeila and IJcrbcra, 
near lliu outlet of the Hod Sea, and from the Zanzibar coast. Accordinir to Sir 
T. F. Uu.\ton, this branch of the slave trade consumes 100,000 victims annually, 
half of whom live to become serviceable. White slaves, mostly " damsels of great 
value," they procure from Circassia and other regions around Mount Caucasus. 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



1432 — 1445. — Portuguese Discoveries. — Commencement of the Slave Trade. 

might in future discover, from Cape Bojador to the East Indies. The 
Pope also granted a plenary indulgence to the souls of all who might 
perish in the enterprise, and in recovering the nations of those regions 
to Christ and his church. And certainly, few indulgences have been 
granted to souls that had more need of them. 

The Portuguese laity were at first averse to an enterprise which 
appeared rash and useless; but the clergy rose up in its favor, and bore 
down all opposition. Ships were fitted out, and after some failures, 
Gilianez doubled Cape Bojador in 14:32. In 1434, Alonzo Gonzales 
explored the coast for thirty leagues beyond. In 1435, he sailed along 
twenty-four leagues further. In an attempt to seize a party of natives, 
some were wounded on both sides. In 1440, Antonio Gonzales made 
the same voyage, seized about ten of the natives, all Moors, and brought 
them away.* Nunno Tristan discovered Cape Blanco. In 1442, 
Antonio Gonzales returned to the coast, and released one of the Moors 
formerly carried away, on his promise to pay seven Guinea slaves for 
his ransom. The promise was not fulfilled; but two other Moors ran- 
somed themselves for several blacks of different countries and some 
gold dust. The place was hence called Rio del Oro, (Gold River,) 
and is nearly under the tropic of Cancer. In 1443, Nunno Tristan 
discovered Arguin, and caught 14 blacks. In 1444, Gilianez and 
others, in six caravels, seized 195 blacks, most of whom were Moors, 
near Arguin, and were well rewarded by their prince. In 1445, Gon- 
zales de Cintra, with seven of his men, were killed 14 leagues beyond 
Rio del Oro, by 200 Moors. In 1446, Antonio Gonzales was sent to 
treat with the Moors at Rio del Oro, concerning peace, commerce, 
and their conversion to Christianity. They refused to treat. Nunno 
Tristan brought away 20 slaves. Denis Fernandez passed by the 
Senegal, took four blacks in a fishing boat, and discovered Cape 
Verde. In 1447, Antonio Gonzales took 25 Moors near Arguin, and 
took 55 and killed others at Cape Blanco. Da Gram took 54 at Ar- 
guin, ran eight leagues further and took 50 more, losing seven men. 
Lancelot and others, at various places, killed many and took about 
180, of whom 20, being allies treacherously seized, were afterwards 
sent back. Nunno Tristan entered the Rio Grande, where he and all 
his men but four were killed by poisoned arrows. Alvaro Fernandez, 
40 leagues beyond, had two battles with the natives, in one of which 
he was wounded. Gilianez and others were defeated with the loss of 
five men at Cape Verde, made 48 slaves at Arguin, and took two 
women and killed seven natives at Palma. Gomez Perez, being dis- 
appointed in the ransom of certain Moors at Rio del Oro, brought 
away 80 slaves. 

Thus far from Portuguese historians. Next, let us hear the accounts 
which voyagers give of their own doings and discoveries. The oldest 
whose works are extant, and one of the most intelligent and trustworthy, 
is Aluise de Cada Mosto, a Venetian in the service of Portugal. 

Cada Mosto sailed in 1455. He found the people around Cape 
Blanco and Arguin, Muhammedans. He calls them Arabs. They 

* The common statement, that the first slaveswere brought home hy Alonzo Gon- 
zales, in J434, appears to be an error. 

2 



10 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1455 — 1471. — Discovery of Cape Mesurado. 

traded with Barbary, Tombuctoo and the negroes. They get from ten 
to eighteen negroes for a Barbary horse. From TOO to bOO annually 
are brought to Arguin and sold to the Portuguese. Formerly, the Por- 
tuguese used to land by night, surprise fishing villages and country 
places, and carry off Arabs. They had also seized some of the Azen- 
aghi, who are a tawny race , north of Senegal, and who make better 
slaves than the negroes; but, as they are not confirmed iMuhauimedans, 
Don Henry had hopes of their conversion, and had made peace with 
them. South of the Senegal are the Jaloffs, who are savages, and ex- 
tremely poor. Their king lives by robbery, and by forcing his subjects 
and others into slavery. He sells slaves to the Azenaghi, Arabs and 
Christians. Both sexes are very lascivious, and they are exceedingly 
addicted to sorcery. A little south of Cape Verde, he found negroes 
who would suffer no chief to exist among them, lest their wives and 
children should be taken and sold for slaves, " as they are in all other 
negro countries that have kings and lords." They use poisoned 
arrows, " are great idolaters, without any law, and extremely cruel." 
Further on, he sent on shore a baptized negro as an interpreter, who 
was immediately put to death. He entered the Gambia, and was 
attacked by the natives in 15 canoes. After a battle, in which one 
negro was killed, they consented to a parley. They told him they had 
heard of the dealings of white men on the Senegal ; knew that they 
bought negroes only to eat ; would have no trade with them, but would 
kill them and give their goods to their kinj;. He left the river and re- 
turned. The next year he entered the Gambia again, and went up 
about forty miles. He staid eleven days, made a treaty with Battimansa, 
bought some slaves of him, and left the river because the fever had 
seized his crew. He found some Muhammedan traders there; but the 
people were idolaters, and great believers in sorcery. They never go 
far frorn home by water, for fear of being seized as slaves. He 
coasted along to the Kasamansa and Rio Grande ; but finding the 
language such as none of his interpreters could understand, returned 
to Portugal. 

In 1401, the Portuguese began to take permanent possession, by 
erecting a fort at Arguin. 

140vJ, Piedro de Cintra discovered Sierra Leone, Gallinas River, — 
which he called Rio del Fumi, because he saw nothing but smoke 
there, — Cape Mount, and Cape Mesurado, where he saw many fires 
among the trees, made by the negroes who had sight of the ships, and 
had never seen such things before. Sixteen miles farther along the 
coast, a few natives came off in canoes, two or three in each. They 
were all naked, had some wooden darts and small knives, two targets 
and three bows ; had rings about their ears and one in the nose, and 
teeth strung about their necks, which seemed to be human. Such is 
our earliest notice of what is now Liberia. The teeth were those of 
slaughtered enemies, worn as trophies. The account of this voyage 
was written by Cada Mosto. 

In 14G:J, Don Henry died, and the Guinea trade, which had been 
his property, passed into the hands of the king. He farmed it, for five 
years, to Fernando Gomez, for 500 ducats, and an obligation to explore 
500 additional leagues of coast. In 1471, Juan de Sautcrem and 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 11 

Mission to Elmina. — Bull of Demarcation — 1484 — 1494. 

Pedro de Escobar explored the Gold Coast, and discovered Rio del Oro 
delMina; that is, Gold Mine River, which afterwards gave name to 
the fortress of Elmina. 

In 1481, two Englishmen, John Tintam and William Fabian, began 
to tit out an expedition to Guinea; but John II. of Portugal sent two 
ambassadors to England, to insist on his own exclusive claims to that 
country, and the voyage was given up. 

The same year, the king of Portugal sent ten ships, with 500 sol- 
diers and 100, or as some say, 200 laborers, and a proper complement 
of priests as missionaries, to Elmina. They arrived, and on the I'.Hh 
of January, landed, and celebrated the first mass in Guinea. Prayer 
was offered for the conversion of the natives, and the perpetuity of the 
church about to be founded. 

In 1464, John II. invited the powers of Europe to share with him 
the expense of these discoveries, and of "making conquests on the 
infidels," which tended to the common benefit of all ; but they de- 
clined. He then obtained from the Pope a bull, confirming the former 
grant to Portugal, of all the lands they should discover from Cape 
Bojador to India, forbidding other nations to attempt discoveries in 
those parts of the world, and decreeing that if they should make any, 
the regions so discovered should belong to Portugal. From this time, 
the king of Portugal, in addition to his other titles, styled himself 
" Lord of Guinea." 

The same year, Diego Cam passed the Bight of Benin, discovered 
Congo, and explored the coast to the twenty second degree of south 
latitude. In a lew years, a treaty was made with the king of Congo, 
for the conversion of himself and his kingdom. The king and several 
of the royal family were baptized ; but on learning that they must 
abandon polygamy, nearly all renounced their baptism. This led to 
a war, which ended in their submission to Rome. 

About the same time, the king of Benin applied for missionaries, 
hoping thereby to draw Portuguese trade to his dominions. "But 
they being sent, the design was discovered not to be religion, but 
covetousness. For these heathens bought christened slaves; and the 
Portuguese, with the same avarice, sold them after being ba|)tized, 
knowing that their new masters would oblige them to return to their 
old idolatry. This scandalous commerce subsisted till the religious 
king John III. forbade it, though to his great loss." Such was the 
character of the Portuguese in Guinea. 

And here, for the sake of placing these events in their true connec- 
tion with the history of the world, it may be well to state, that in 1486 
Bartholomew Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope; and in 1402, 
Columbus made his first voyage to America. In 1493, May 2, Pope 
Alexander, "out of his pure liberality, infallible knowledge and apos- 
tolic power," granted to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, all countries 
inhabited by infidels, which they had discovered or might discover, on 
condition of their planting and propagating there the Christian faith. 
Another bull, issued the next day, decreed that a line drawn 100 
leagues west of the Azores, and extending from pole to pole, should 
divide the claims of Spain from those of Portugal; and in June, 1494, 
another bull removed this line of demarcation to 370 leagues west of 



12 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1492 — 1515. — Prince Bemoi. — Portuguese Settlements and Character. 

the Cape Verde Islands. In 1492, Vasco de Gama succeeded in 
reaching India by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Thenceforth, the 
more splendid atrocities of the East and West Indies' threw those on 
the coast of Guinea into the shade, and historians have recorded them 
with less minuteness; so that, from this lime, we are unable to give 
names and dates with the same precision as heretofore. We know, 
however, that they continued to extend their intercourse with the 
natives, and their possessions along the coast. 

It was some time previous to 1520, that one Bemoi came to Portu- 
gal, representing himself as the rightful king of the Jaloffs, and re- 
questing aid against his rivals. To obtain it, he submitted to baptism, 
with twenty-four of his followers, and agreed to hold his kingdom as a 
feofF of Portugal. Pedro Vaz de Cunna was sent out, with twenty 
caravels well manned and armed, to assist him, and to build a fort at 
the mouth of the Senegal. The fort was commenced; but Pedro 
found some pretext for quarreling with Bemoi, and stabbed him to the 
heart. Intercourse, however, was soon established extensively with 
the Jaloffs, the Foulahs, and other races in that region; of whom the 
Portuguese, settling in great numbers among them, became the virtual 
lords. We find them subsequently in possession of forts or trading 
houses, or living as colonists, at the Rio Grande, Sierra Leone, proba- 
bly at Gallinas, Cape Mount and Cape Mesurado, certainly at the 
Junk, Sesters, and Sangwin on the coast of Liberia, at Cape Three 
Points, Axim, Elmina, and numerous other places on the Ivory, Gold 
and Slave Coasts. So universally predominant was their influence, 
that in the- course of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese became 
the common language of business, and was everywhere generally un- 
derstood by such natives as had intercourse with foreigners. A few 
Portuguese words, such as "palaver," "fetish" and perhaps some 
others, remain in current use among the natives to this day. 

Of the character of the Portuguese on the coast, some judgment 
may be formed from what has already been stated. It seems rapidly 
to have grown worse and worse. It was a place of banishment for 
criminals, convicted of various outrages, violence and robbery ; a 
place where fugitives from justice sought and found a refuge ; a 
place where adventurers who hated the restraints of law, sought free- 
dom and impunity. " No wonder, therefore," says a writer who had 
been at Elmina, " that the histories of those times give an account of 
unparalleled violence and inhumanities perpetrated at the place by the 
Portuguese, whilst under their subjection, not only against the natives 
and such Europeans as resorted thither, but even amongst themselves." 
Bad as the native character originally was, Portuguese influence rapidly 
added to its atrocity. A series of wars, which commenced among 
them about this time, illustrates the character of both. 

In 1515, or as some say, in 1505, the Curnbas, from the interior, 
began to make plundering incursions upon the Capez, about Sierra 
Leone. The Curnbas were doubtless a branch of the Giagas, another 
division of whom emigrated, twenty or thirty years later, to the upper 
region on the Congo river, and there founded the kingdom of Aiisiko, 
otiierwise called Makoko, whose king ruled over thirteen kingdoms. 
"Their food," says Rees' Cyclopedia, Art. Ansiko, " is said to be hu- 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 13 

The Cumbas and Giagas.— 1492— 1516. 

man flesh, and human bodies are hung up for sale in their shambles. 
Conceiving that they have an absolute right to dispose of their slaves 
at pleasure, their prisoners of war are fattened, killed and eaten, or 
sold to butchers." Specimens of this cannibal race, from near the 
same region, have shown themselves within a very few years. The 
Cumbaz, on invading the Capez, were pleased with the country, and 
resolved to settle there. They took possession of the most fertile 
spots, and cleared them of their inhabitants, by killing and eating 
some, and selling others to the Portuguese, who stood ready to buy 
them. In 1678, that is, 163 years or more from its commencement, 
this war was still going on. * 

* These Giagas form one of the most horribly interestiDg subjects for investiga- 
tion, in all history. In Weste.''n Africa, they e.xtended their ravages as i'ar south 
as Benguela. Their career in that direction seems to liave been arrested by the 
great desert, sparsely peopled by the Daniaras and Namaquas, extending from Ben- 
guela to the Orange River, and presenting nothing to plunder. In loc6, the mis- 
sionary Santos found tliem at war with the Portuguese settlements on the 
Zariibeze. He describes their ravages, but without giving dates, along the eastern 
coast for a thousand miles northward to Melinda, where they were repulsed by the 
Portuguese. Antonio Fernandez, writing from Abyssinia in 1609, mentions an 
irruption of the Galae, who are said to be the same people, tiiougii some dispute 
their identity. These Galae, " a savage nation, begotten of devils, as the vulgar 
report," he informs us, issued from their forests and commenced their ravages a 
hundred years before the date of his letter ; that is, about the lime of the invasion 
of Sierra Leone by the Cumbas. We tind no express mention of their cannibalistn ; 
but in other respects they seem closely to resemble the Giagas Thus we find 
tIieiii,from the commencement of the sixteenth century far into the severiteenth, 
ravaging the continent from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, and through thirty 
degrees of latitude. As to their original location, accounts differ. Some place it 
back of the northern part of Liberia. This was evidently one region from wiiich 
they emigrated. Their migrations hence to Sierra Leone on the north and Congo 
and Benguela on the south, are recorded facts. Here, under the name of M<mi, 
Manez, or Monoii, though comparatively few in nurnliers, they exercised a suprem- 
acy over and received tribute from the Quojah?", the Folgias, and all the maritime 
tribes from Sierra Leone alinost to Cape Palmas. East of Cape Palmas, their can- 
nibalism and general ferocity marked the character of the people quite down to the 
coast, especially along what was called the Malegentes (Bad People) and Qtiaqua 
coasts. The testimony is conclusive, that the Cumbas who invaded Sierra Leone 
and the Giagas of Ansiko and Benguela were from this region. According to 
other accounts, their origin was in the region on the eastern slope of the continent, 
from the upper waters of the Nile and the borders of Abyssinia, extending south- 
ward across the equator. In most regions, they appeared merely as roving banditti, 
remaining in a country only long enough to reduce it to desolation. Every where 
the Giagas themselves were (ew, but had numerous followers, who were ot the same 
ferocious character. Every where, except perhaps among the Galae, they had the 
same practice of making scars on their faces by way of ornament. Every where 
they practiced the same cannibalism. On taking the city of Quiloa, a little south 
of Zanzibar, they butchered " three thousand Moors, for future dainties, to eat at 
leisure " Eveiy where their religion was substantially the same, consistino' mainly 
in worshipping the devil when about to commence an expedition. They had 
various names, some of which have been already mentioned. In the east, they 
were also called Mumbos, Zimbas, and Muziinbas. In the same region, and the 
vicinity of Congo, they were also called Jagges, Gaaas, Giachi, and it was said, 
called themselves Ag.igs. Compare also, of terms still in use, the Gallas, a .sav- 
age people on the south of Abyssirmia, who are doubtless the Galae of Fernandez ; 
the Golahs, formerly written Galas, north east of Monrovia, in the Monou region, 
of whose connection with the Giagas, however, there appears to be no othei evi- 
dence; and the Mumbo Jumbo, or fictitious devil, with whom the priests overawe 
the superstitious in the whole region south of the Gambia. Their followers, in 
eastern Africa, were called Cafires ; but perhaps the word was used in its original 



14 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1503— 1590. — The Siianish, English, and French. 

The trade in slaves received a new impulse about tliis time, from the 
demand for them in the Spanish West Indies. They had been intro- 
duced into those colonies, at least as early as 1503; and the trade was 
encouraged by edicts, of Ferdinand V. in loll, and of Charles V. in 
1515. At the close of the century, this trade was immense. Portu- 
guese residents bought the slaves of the natives, or procured them 
otherwise, and sold them to Spanish traders, who carried them to the 
West Indies. 

The Protestants of England and Holland felt little respect for the 
Pope's grant of all Western Africa to Portugal ; and even the French 
soon learned to disregard it. 

The English took the lead. In 1551, and again in 1552, Thomas 
Windham visited the coast of Morocco. The Portuguese threatened 
him, thut if found again in those seas, he and his crew should be 
treated as " mortal enemies." Nothing daunted by these threats, he 
sailed again the next year. He took a Portuguese partner as a guide, 
and visited the whole coast from the river Sestos to Benin. In 1554, 
Capt. John Lok, with three ships, reached the coast at Cape Mesurado, 
sailed along it nearly or quite to Benin, and brought home "certain 
black slaves," the first, so far as ap()ears, ever brought to England. 
From this time, voyages appear ta have been made annually, and some 
times several in a year, always in armed ships, and attended with 
more or less fighting with the Portuguese, the natives, or both. In 
1564, David Carlet attempted to trade with the negroes near Elmina. 
The negroes, hired and instructed by the Portuguese, first secured 
their confidence, and then betrayed Carlet, a merchant who accompa- 
nied him, and twelve of his crew, to the Portuguese, as prisoners. 
This mode of employing the negroes now became a common j)ractice. 
In 1590, " about 42 " Englishmen were taken or slain and their goods 
seized by the Portugue.se and negroes combined at Portudal and Joal, 
on the coast of the Jaloffs. Captains Rainolds and Dassel, who were 
there the ne.xt year, detected a similar conspiracy against themselves, 
said by the chief conspirator to be authorized by the king of Portugal. 
In 15SS, the African Company was incorporated, 

Arabic sense, as mertiiing infidels. Near the Congo, their followers were called 
Ansilios, and their principal chief, '■ the great Makoko," wliich some have niistiilion 
for a national liesio-nation Here, also, Imbe was a title of office among them, 
while in the east it was applied lo the whole people. In Angola they were called 
Gindae. Whetlier anv traces of Iheiii still remain in Kaslern Africa, or around 
Congo and Benguela, we are too ignorant of those regions to decide. In the re- 
gion of Liberia, there can be no doubt on the subject. American missionaries at 
Cape Palmas have seen and conversed with men from the interior, who avow 
without hesitation their fondness for human flesh, and their habit of eatiiiir it- On 
the Cavally river, the eastern boundary of Cape Palmas, the cannibal region begins 
some twenty, thirty, or torly miles from the coa-^t, and extends northward, in the 
rear of Liberia, indefinitely. Farther east, it approaches and perhaps reaches the 
coast. In this region, prisoners of war ;ind sometimes slaves are still slain for food. 
Here, too, slaves are sacrificed at the ratification of a treaty, and trees are planted 
lo mark the spot and serve as records of the fact. Such trees have been pointed 
out to our missionaries, by men who were present when they were planted. Com- 
pare, too, the human sacrifices of A<hantee and Dahomey, and the devil-worship 
of all Western Africa — Hnt after all, were th(> Ciagas one race of men, as cotem- 
porary historians supposed ,' Or were they men of a certain character, then pre- 
dominant through nearly all Africa south of the Great Desert.' 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 15 

The Portuguese driven from the Coast. — Dutch Interlopers. — 1578 — 1664. 

The French, we have seen, profess to have been the first traders to 
the coast of Guinea, and to have always retained their post at the 
Senegal. Rainolds found, in 1591, that they had been there more than 
thirty years, and were in good repute. The Spaniards, on the con- 
trary, were detested; and as for the Portuguese, "most of them were 
banished men, or fugitives from justice ; men of the basest behavior 
that he and the rest of the English had ever seen of these nations." 

In 1578, the French were trading at Accra, on the Gold Coast. 
The negroes in the vicinity, at the instigation of the Portuguese, 
destroyed the town. There w-as then a standing offer, from the Portu- 
guese to the negroes, of 100 crowns for a Frenchman's head. In 
1582, the Portuguese sunk a French ship, and made slaves of all the 
crew who escaped a watery grave. 

There is no account of the Dutch on this coast, till the voyage of 
Barent Erickson in 1595. The Portuguese offered to reward the ne- 
groes, if they would kill or betray him. They also offered a reward of 
100 florins for the destruction of a Dutch ship. About the same time, 
a Dutch crew, with the exception of one or two men, was massacred 
at Cape Coast. Of another crew, three Dutchmen were betrayed by 
the negroes and made slaves by the Portuguese at Elmina. In 1599, 
the negroes near Elmina, at the instigation of the Portuguese, inveigled 
five Dutchmen into their power, beheaded them, and in a few hours 
made drinking cups of their skulls. 

But the English and Dutch continued to crowd in, and the Portu- 
guese, who after such atrocities, could not coe.xist with them on the 
same coast, were compelled to retire. In 1604, they were driven from 
all their factories in what is' now Liberia. Instead of leaving the 
country, however, they retreated inland, established themselves there, 
intermarried with the natives, and engaged in commerce between the 
more inland tribes and the traders on the coast; making it a special 
object to prevent the produce of the interior from reaching the coast, 
except through their hands; and for this purpose they obstructed all 
efforts of others to explore the country. Tliey traded with the people 
on the Niger; and one of their mulatto descendants told Villault, in 
1666, that they traded along that river as far as Benin.* Their pos- 
terity gradually became merged and lost among the negro population ; 
but the obstruction of intercourse with the interior became the settled 
policy of those tribes, and has done much to retard the growth of com- 
merce in Liberia. 

In other parts, the Portuguese held possession some years longer. 
But the Dutch took their fort at Elmina in 1637, and that at Axim in 
1642 ; after which they were soon expelled from the Gold and Ivory 
Coasts. Before 1666, they had given place to the Dutch at Cape 
Mount, and to the English at Sierra Leone. In 1621, the English 
were trading in the Gambia, and in 1664, built James Fort near its 
mouth. Here also the Portuguese retired inland and mingled with the 
natives. Not many years since, some of their descendants were still 
to be found. 



* As the Niger was then supposed by Europeans 1o flow westward and disem- 
bogue itself by the Senegal or Gambia, this statement was considered absurd ; 
but since the discovery of the mouth of the Niger in Benin, there is reason to 
suppose it true. It ought to have led to an earlier discovery of the true course and 
outlet of that long mysterious river. 



16 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1600 — 17^1. — English at Siena Leone. — Prevalence of Piracy. 

The influence of the English, Dutch and French on the character 
of the natives, was in some respects different from that of the Portu- 
guese ; but whether it was on the whole any better, is a question of 
some difficulty. Portuguese writers assert that the Dutch gained the 
favor of the negroes by teaching them drunkenness and other vices ; 
that they became absolute pirates, and seized and held several places 
on the coast, to which they had no right but that of the strongest. 

The Dutch trade was, by law, exclusively in the hands of an incor- 
porated company, having authority to seize and confiscate to its own 
use, the vessels and cargoes of private traders found on the coast. 
These private traders, or interlopers, as they were called, were fre- 
quently seized by stratagem by the Dutch garrisons on the coast, and 
treated with great severity. But they provided themselves with fast 
sailing ships, went well armed and manned, and generally fought to the 
last man, rather than betaken by the Company's forces. Capt. Phillips, 
in 1()93, found more than a dozen of these interlopers on the coast, 
and had seen four or five of them at a time lying before Elmina castle 
for a week together, trading, as it were, in defiance of it. 

The Englisli had also their incorporated company, and their private 
traders. Of the character of the latter, we find no specification which 
dates in this century. In 172 1, there were about thirty of them settled 
on the " starboard side of the bay of Sierra Leone." Atkins des- 
cribes them as " loose, privateering blades, who if they cannot trade 
fairly with the natives, will rob. Of these," he says, "John Leadstine, 
commonly called ' Old Cracker,' is reckoned the most thriving." 
This man, called Leadstone in Johnson's "History of the Pirates," 
had been an old buccanier, and kept two or three guns before his 
door, "to salute his friends the pirates when they put in there." Such, 
substantially, appears to have been the character of the English "pri- 
vate traders" upon this coast from the beginning. Of the regular 
traders, English and Dutch, a part, and only a part, seem to have been 
comparatively decent. 

The influence of the Pirates on this coast deserves a distinct con- 
sideration. 

They appeared there occasionally, as early as the year 1600, and 
seem to have increased with the increase of commerce. For some 
years, the piratically disposed appear to have found scope for the indul- 
gence of their propensities among the buccaniers of the West Indies. 
But after the |)artial breaking up of the buccaniers in 1G88, and still 
more after their suppression in 1097, they spread themselves over the 
whole extentof the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The coast of Guinea 
was one of their principal haunts, and Sierra Leone a favorite resort. 
They not only |)luiidered at sea, but boldly entered any port where the 
people, whether native or European, were not strong enough to resist 
them, and traded there on their own terms. In 1()93, Phillips found 
that the governor of Porto Praya made it a rule never to go on board 
any ship in the harbor, lest it should prove to be a pirate, and he should 
be detained till he had furnished a supply of provisions, for which he 
would be |)ai(i by a bill of exchange on some imaginary person in Lon- 
don. Avery, commonly known as "Long Ben," had thus extorted 
supplies from the Governor of St, Thomas, and paid him by a bill on 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 17 

Prevalence of Piracy. — 1721. 

" the pump at Aldgate." At Cape Mesurado, Phillips found a Scotch- 
man, of the crew of Herbert, the pirate. The crew had quarrelled, 
all the rest were killed or afterwards died of their wounds, he ran the 
brigantine ashore near tlie Cape, and had since been living among the 
natives. Capt Snelgrave arrived at Sierra Leone, April 1, 1719. He 
found three pirates in the harbor; Cocklyn, Le Bouse and Davis. 
They had lately taken ten English vessels. His first mate, Jones, be- 
trayed him into their hands. He had with him a royal proclamation, 
offering pardon to all English pirates who should surrender themselves 
on or before the first of July. An old buccanier tore it in pieces. 
They took Snelgrave's vessel for their own use, leaving an inferior one 
for him, and left the bay about the 29th of the month. Afterwards, 
he tells us, that more than a hundred vessels fell into the hands of 
these pirates on the coast of Guinea, and some of the gang did im- 
mense damage in the West Indies. A few days after sailing, Davis 
took the Princess, of London, plundered her and let her go; but her 
second mate, Roberts, joined him. He landed at Prince's Island, 
where the Portuguese governor at first favored them, for the sake of 
their trade, but finally assassinated Davis. The crew then chose 
Roberts for their captain, whose exploits were still more atrocious. 

The same year, England, the pirate, took an English vessel near 
Sierra Leone, murdered the captain. Skinner, and gave her to Howell 
Harris, who, after trial and acquittal, obtained command of a merchant 
sloop, and turned pirate. Having had " pretty good success " for a 
while, he attacked St. Jago, in the Cape Verde Islands, but was repuls- 
ed. He then took, plundered and destroyed the English fort St. James 
at the mouth of the Gambia. The fort appears to have been partially 
rebuilt immediately, in 1721, the African Company sent out the 
Gambra Castle, Capt. Russell, with a company of soldiers under Maj. 
Massey, to strengthen it. The new governor, Whitney, had just arriv- 
ed. Massey, with the assistance of Lovvther, second mate, seized 
both the fort and the ship ; and after cruising awhile as a pirate, went 
home, brought on his own trial, and was hanged. 

In 1721 , Roberts, before mentioned, had become so formidable as 
to attract the notice of the English government. Two ships of 50 
guns each were sent out to capture him. Atkins, surgeon of the 
squadron, has given an account of the cruise. AtElmina, in January, 
they found that Roberts had " made a bold sweep" in August, had 
taken a vessel a few leagues from that place, and had " committed 
great cruelties." His three ships were well manned, " seamen every 
where entering with them ; and when they refused, it was oftener 
through fear, than any detestation of the practice." This shows what 
was then the general character of English seamen in that region, and 
what influence they must have exerted on the natives. January 15, 
they reached Whidah. The pirates had just plundered and ransomed 
eleven ships, and been gone twenty-foyr hours. They followed on to 
the south, and by the 12th of February, took all three of their ships; 
the crew of the last having abandoned it and fled. They found on 
board about 300 Englishmen, 60 or 70 stout negroes, great plenty of 
trade goods, and eight or ten thousand pounds of gold dust. The trial 
of these pirates occupied the Court at Cape Coast Castle twenty-six 

3 



Jg COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 
1680— 1730.— Influence of the Pirates. 



days; 52 were executed there, 74 acquitted, 20 condemned to servi- 
tude and 17 sent to the Marshalsea. , , , • * r 

The next year Cant. George Roberts was taken by three pirates of 
whom Edlnd Loe was the chief, at the Cape Verde Islands. Wh. e 
There after Loe had gone, he fell in with Charles Franklin,* who had 
been 'taken some time before by Bartholomew Roberts, a pirate, had 
escaped from him at Sierra Leone, and taken refuge among the negroes 

'"T^V^pTraTe's seem generally to have been content vvith trading at 
Sierra Leone, without l^lundenng the people, though ^-^f^^'^^^^;^^ 
nlice in 1 720 They afterwards took permanent possession ot he hrst 
bay be Tovv the Cape, and occupied it for seven years or more, till brok- 
en up by an e.peSition from France in 1730. Hence the place was 
called "Pirate's Bay." and was so named on British charts. 

The moral influence of such a concentration of piracy upon the 
coast for nearly half a century, cannot be doubtful. The character of 
Tate we know, has always been made up of remorseless ferocity 
Sustuplous rapacity, and unbridled Hcentiousness. PeH^^^^^^^^^^ versed 
in all the vices of civilization, restrained by no moral punciple, by no 
fpeln. of humanity by no sense of shame, they landed whenever and 
mo^f wLiX th^ey pleased upon the whole coast ^vith lorces w .ich 
it would have been madness to resist, and compelled the mli^t^'tai its 
whetC negro European or mixed, to become the partners of their 
Tevels th^^^^^^^^^ dupes of their duplicity, or the victims of 

hei ;iolence This, added to all the other malign influences at work 

.nlled the Rio Duro on account of the cruelty of the people. 

Dann r a Dutch vriter, whose description of Africa was published 
nhmXe veaV 1670, says of the Quojahs, who were predominant from 
about the year ium», sa;y Q„,t^« thnt both sexes were extremely licen- 
^'"" ^"°".l.reatthieve^\n,n°ch addicted .o >v„cl,cn.f,, in 

say« that " the.e inlanders l.ave a ^ ;- / '^ ^^^.^S; i" than the old ; but 
world, wl.ore they nUend o re-^e js l.c ' ^^^''-^V, b/nrany a,es before it ca„ 
tl.at there wants so .nuch to be done 1. it, tim . J^^^^^^^^^ ^ ,, ^^^^ 

bo u.ade fit for iho.r ■"^■f P '' " ' '''"^ , "jf Carried on by the ne-rroes ihey yearly 
their old world tlHt-r .he abor of u i . carn^^^^ ^^^^^^^ . „,,,,, without 

take out ot Guinea , that 'i" l"o«^ ^ ^' ' ^^,,^^1 j, completely filled up in a 

any inlennission "' '•'^'l'''7;V;:"f,..'i;,,;„"e Unsettled there. Hut when that is 
very beautiful manner, and the «;' ^ ;;' J \^^ 7, ,,,in ,,„d them homo to inhabit 
r iM"^H-::; -H^n^ t;:Se:;^;e by ^..e whites, who will never come 
ere a.au.: This happy time they -?:";"'y i;;\'l\>;' published in London in 1726, 

Jtw t^^^^StrC;^-- -" - «^-"" ^'-' -"^ '^ 

spare them ? 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 19 

Character of the Natives.— 1693— 1724. 

him. From the Sestos to Cape Palmas, the people were much the 
same, but still more adroit at theft, and more addicted to witchcraft 
and devil-worship. 

Barbot, Agent General of the French African Company, was on the 
coast much of the time from 1680 to 1701. He says that the English 
had formerly a settlement at Sangwin, but abandoned it, because of 
the ill temper of the blacks. At Bottowa, they are dexterous thieves, 
and ought to be well looked to in dealing with them. 

Phillips,* in 169:}, at Grand Sesters, thought it unsafe to go up the 
river eight miles to visit king Peter, hearing that the natives were very 
treacherous and bloody. The people whom he saw were surly, and 
looked like villains. Though his ship carried 36 guns, on learning the 
temper of the people, he immediately cleared for action and left the 
river. 

Snoek was at Cape Mesurado in 1701. Only one negro came on 
board, and he saw but a kw on shore. Two English ships had two 
months before ravaged their country, destroyed their canoes, plundered 
their houses, and carried off some of their people. 

Bosman was on the coast about the same time. His description of 
Guinea, written in Dutch and translated into several languages, is one 
of the best extant. " The negroes," he says, " are all, without excep- 
tion, crafty, villainous and fraudulent, and very seldom to be trusted; 
being sure to slip no opportunity of cheating a European, nor indeed 
one another." The mulattoes, he says, are "a parcel of profligate vil- 
lains, neither true to the negroes nor us ; nor indeed dare they trust 
one another ; so that you rarely see them agree together. Whatever 
is in its own nature worst in the Europeans and negroes, is united in 
them." At some place, probably beyond Cape Palmas, he saw eleven 
human sacrifices at one funeral. 

Marchais was at Cape Mesurado in 1724. He says that the Eng- 
lish, Dutch and Portuguese writers all unite in representing the natives 
there as faithless, cunning, revengeful and cruel to the last degree; 
and he assents to the description. He adds, that " formerly they offer- 
ed human sacrifices ; but this custom has ceased since they found the 
profit of selling their prisoners of war to foreigners." He gives a map 
of the Cape, and the plan of a proposed fort on its summit; and thinks 
it might yield 1,500 or 2,000 slaves annually, besides a large amount 
of ivory. 



* Phillips sailed in the employment of the English African Companj', and was 
evidently one of the most humane, conscientious and intelligent voyagers to that 
coast. He found the people of the Quaqua coast, a little beyond Cape Palmas, to 
be cannibals, as most who visited them also testify. At Secondee, Johnson, the 
English factor, had been surprised in the night, cut in pieces and his goods plun- 
dered by the negroes, at the instigation of the Dutch. At Whidah, Phillips bought 
for his two ships, 1,300 slaves. Twelve of them willfully drowned themselves, and 
others starved themselves to death. He was advised to cut off the legs and arms 
of a few, to terrify the rest, as other captains had done ; but he could not think of 
treating with such barbarity, poor creatures, who being equally the work of God's 
hands.'are doubtless as dear to him as the whites. He saw the bodies of several 
eaten by the sharks which followed his ship. On arriving at Barbadoes, the ship 
under his immediate command had lost " 14 men and 320 negroes." On each 
dead negro, the African Company lost £10, and the ship lost the freight, £10 10s. 
He delivered alive 372, who sold, on an average, at about £19. Such was the 
slave trade, in its least horrible aspect, in 1693. 



I 



20 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1724— 1730.— Character of the Natives — Negro Funeral. 

At the river Sestos, Marchais witnessed a negro funeral. " The 
captain or chief of a village dying of a hard drinking bout of brandy, 
the cries of his wives immediately spread the news through the town. 
All the women ran there and howled like furies. The favorite wife 
distinguished herself by her grief, and not without cause." She was 
watched by the other women, to prevent her escape. The Marbut, or 
priest, examined the body, and pronounced the death natural — not the 
effect of witchcraft. Then followed washing the body, and carrying 
it in procession through the village, with tearing of the hair, howling, 
and other frantic expressions of grief " During this, the marbut 
made a grave, deep and large enough to hold two bodies. He also 
stripped and skinned a goat. The pluck served to make a ragout, of 
which he and the assistants ate. He also caused the favorite wife to eat 
some; who had no great inclination to taste it, knowing it was to be her 
last. She ate some, however; and during this repast, the body of the 
goat was divided in small pieces, broiled and eaten. The lamentations 
began again ; and when the marbut thought it was time to end the 
ceremony, he took the favorite wife by the arms, and delivered her to 
two stout negroes. These, seizing her roughly, tied her hands and 
feet behind her, and laying her on her back, placed a piece of wood 
on her breast. Then, holding each other with their hands on their 
shoulders, they stamped with their feet on the piece of wood, till 
they had broken the woman's breast. Having thus at least half des- 
patched her, they threw her into the grave, with the remainder of the 
goat, casting her husband's body over her, and filling up the grave with 
earth and stones. Immediately the cries ceasing, a quick silence suc- 
ceeded the noise, and every one returned home as quietly as if nothing 
had happened." 

Smith was sent out by the African Company to survey the coast, in 
1726. At Gallinas, in December, he found Benjamin Cross, whom 
the natives had seized and kept three months, in reprisal for some of 
their people, who had been seized by the English. Such seizures, he 
says, were too often practiced by Bristol and Liver|)ool ships. Cross 
was ransomed for about €->(). At Cape Mount, he found the natives 
cautious of intercourse, for fear of being seized. At Cape Mesurado, 
in January, 1727, he saw many of the natives, but not liking to ven- 
ture on shore, had nodiscour.se with them. 

In 1730, Snelgrave, who had been captured by pirates nine years 
before, was again on the coast. There was then not a single European 
factory on the whole Windward Coast, and Europeans were " shy of 
trusting themselves on shore, the natives being very barbarous and un- 
civilized." He never met a white man who durst venture himself up 
the country. He mentions the suspicious and revengeful feelings of 
the natives, occasioned by seizing them for slaves, as a cause of the 
danger. He, too, witnessed human sacrifices. 

Such was the character of what is now Liberia, after 2GS years of 
intercourse with slave traders and pirates. 

Moanwliile, nations were treating with each other for the extension 
of the slave trade. The Genoese at first had the privilege of fiirnish- 
inrr the Spanish Colonics with negro slaves. The French next obtain- 
ed it, and kept it till, according to Spanish official returns, it had yield- 



COLONIZATION AND MISSrONS. 21 

Assiento Treaty. — Panyaring.— Piracy. — 17 13 — 1813; 

ed them $204,000,000. In 1713, the British Government, by the 
famous Assiento treaty, secured it for the South Sea Company for 
thirty years. In 1739, Spain was desirous to take the business into 
her own hands, and England sold out the remaining four years for 
.£100,000, to be paid in London in three months.* 

From this time to 1791, when the British Parliament began to col- 
lect testimony concerning the slave trade, there seems to have been no 
important change in the influences operating on the coast, or in the 
character of its inhabitants. The collection and publication of testi- 
mony was continued till the passage, in 1807, of the act abolishing 
the trade. From this testimony, it appeared that nearly all the masters 
of English ships engaged in that trade, were of the most abandoned 
character, none too good to be pirates. Their cruelty to their own 
men was so excessive and so notorious, that crews could never be ob- 
tained without great difficulty, and seldom without fraud. Exciting 
the native tribes to make war on each other for the purpose of obtain- 
ing slaves, was a common practice. The Windward Coast, especially, 
was fast becoming depopulated. The Bassa country, and that on the 
Mesurado and Junk rivers, were particularly mentioned, as regions 
which had suffered in these wars ; where the witnesses had seen the 
ruins of villages, lately surprised and burned in the night, and rice 
fields unharvested, because their owners had been seized and sold. 
On other parts of the coast, the slaves were collected and kept for em- 
barkation in factories ; but on the Windward Coast, " every tree was a 
factory," and when the negroes had anything to sell, they signified it 
by kindling a fire. Here, also, was the principal scene of "panyar- 
ing; " that is, of enticing a negro into a canoe, or other defenceless 
situation, and then seizing him. The extent of this practice may be 
inferred from the fact, that it had a name, by which it was universally 
known. A negro was hired to panyar a fine girl, whom an English 
captain desired to possess. A few days after, he was panyared himself 
and sold to the same captain. " What I " he exclaimed, — " buy me, a 
great trader?" " Yes," was the reply,-—" we will buy any of you, if 
any body will sell you." It was given in evidence, that business could 
not be transacted, if the buyer were to inquire into the title of those 
from whom he bought. Piracy, too, added its horrors whenever the 
state of the world permitted, and, as we shall have occasion to show, 
was rampant when Liberia was founded. 

Factories, however, were gradually re-established and fortified ; but 
not till the slave trade had nearly depopulated the coast, and thus di- 
minished the danger. Two British subjects, Bostock and McQuinn, 
had one at Cape Mesurado. In June 1813, His Majesty's ship Thais 
sent forty men on shore, who after a battle, in which one of their num- 
ber was killed, entered the factory and captured its owners. French, 
and especially Spanish factories, had become numerous. 

A large proportion, both of the slave ships and factories, were pirat- 



* Rees' Cyclopedia, Art. Assiento. The statement may be sliglitly inaccurate. 
The treaty, or "convention" with Spain in 1739, stipulated for the payment of 
£95,000, and the settlement of certain other claims, the amount of which was still 
to be ascertained. 



22 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

{.1818— 18Q5.— Liberia Founded— Slate of llie Country. 

ical. By the laws of several nations, the trade was prohibited, and 
ships engaged in it liable to capture. They therefore prepared to de- 
fend themselves. The general peace which followed the downfall of 
Napoleon, left many privateers and their crews out of employment, and 
they engaged at once in piracy and the slave trade. In 1818, Lord 
Castlereagh communicated to the ambassadors of the leading powers of 
Europe, a list of eighteen armed slavers lately on the coast, of live ves- 
sels taken and destroyed by them, and of several battles with others ; 
and these were mentioned only as specimens. 

The natives, notwithstanding the evils which the slave trade inflict- 
ed upon them, were infatuated with it. In 18"2I, the agents of the 
Colonization Society attempted to purchase a tract for their first settle- 
ment at Grand Bassa. The only obstacle was, the refusal of the peo- 
ple to make any concession towards an abandonment of that traffic. 
In December of that year, a contract with that indispensable condition 
was made for Cape Mesurado. The first colonists took possession 
January 7, 1S2-2. In November of the same year, and again in De- 
cember, the natives attacked the Colony in great numbers, and with an 
obstinate determination to e.xterminate the settlers and renew the trade 
at that accustomed spot. In April and May, 182:3, Mr. Ashmun, gov- 
ernor of the Colony, went on business along the Coast about 150 miles 
to Settra Kroo. " One century ago," he remarks, " a great part of 
this line of coast was populous, cleared of trees, and under cultivation. 
It is now covered with a dense and almost continuous forest. This is 
almost wholly a second growth; commonly distinguished from the 
original by the profusion of brambles and brushwood, which abounds 
amongst the larger trees, and renders the woods entirely impervious, 
even to the natives, until paths are opened by the bill-hook." 

In May, 1825, Mr. Ashmun purchased for the colony, a fine tract 
on the St. Paul's. Of this he says : "Along this beautiful river were 
formerly scattered, in Africa's better days, innumerable native hamlets; 
and till within the last twenty years, nearly the whole river board, for 
one or two miles back, was under that slight culture which obtains 
among the natives of this country. But the population has been wast- 
ed by the rage for trading in slaves, with which the constant presence 
of slaving vessels and the introduction of foreign luxuries have inspir- 
ed them. The south bank of this river, and all the intervening coun- 
try between it and the Mesurado, have been, from this cause, nearly 
desolated of inhabitants. A few detached and solitary plantations, 
scattered at long intervals through the tract, just serve to interrupt the 
silence and relieve the gloom which reigns over the whole region." 

The moral desolation, he found to be still more complete. He 
writes: " The two slaving stations of Cape Mount and Cape Mesurado 
have, for .several ages, desolated of every thing valuable, the interven- 
ing very fertile and beautiful tract of country. The forests have re- 
mained untouched, all moral virtue has been extinguished in the 
people, and their industry annihilated, by this one ruinous cause." 
" Polygamy and domestic slavery, it is well known, are as universal as 
the scanty means of the people will permit. And a licentiousness of 
practice which none — not the worst part of any civilized community 
on earth — can parallel, gives a hellish consummation to the frightful de- 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 23 

Morals of the Natives. — King Boatswain. — 1823 — 18-i7. 

formity imparted by sin to the moral aspect of these tribes." '-The 
emigrants, from the hour of their arrival in Africa, are acted upon by 
the vitiating example of the natives of this country. 'I'he amount and 
effects of this influence, I fear, are generally and egregiously under- 
rated. It is not known to every one, how little difference can be per- 
ceived in the measure of intellect possessed by an ignorant rustic from 
the United States, and a sprightly native of the coast. It may not be 
easily credited, but the fact certainly is, that the advantage is, oftenest, 
on the side of the latter. The sameness of color, and the correspond- 
ing characteristics to be expected in different portions of the same 
race, give to the example of the natives a power and influence over the 
colonists, as extensive as ii is corrupting. For it must not be suppress- 
ed, however the fact may be at variance with the first impressions from 
which most African journalists have allowed themselves to sketch the 
character of the natives, that it is vicious and contaminating in the 
last degree. I have often expressed my doubt, whether the simple idea 
of moral justice, as we conceive it from the early dawn of reason, has 
a place in the thoughts of a pagan African. As a principle of practi- 
cal morality, I am sure that no such sentiment obtains in the breast of 
five Africans within my acquaintance. A selfishness which prostrates 
every consideration of another's good; a habit of dishonest dealing, of 
which nothing short of unceasing, untiring vigilance can avert the 
consequences; an unlimited indulgence of the appetites; and the 
labored excitement* and unbounded gratification of lust the most un- 
bridled and beastly — these are the ingredients of the African charac- 
ter. And however revolting, however, on occasion, concealed by an 
assumed decency of demeanor, such is the common character of all." 

This last extract was dated May 20, 1827, when Mr. Ashmun had 
been nearly five years in Africa, and in the most favorable circumstan- 
ces for learning the truth. 

And this horrid work was still going on. In August, 1823, Mr. 
Ashmun wrote: — " I wish to afford the Board a full view of our situ- 
ation, and of the African character. The following incident I relate, 
not for its singularity, for similar events take place, perhaps, every 
month in the year; but because it has fallen under my own observa- 
tion, and I can vouch for its authenticity. King Boatswain received a 
quantity of goods in trade from a French slaver, for which he stipulat- 
ed to pay young slaves. He makes it a point of honor to be punctual 
to his engagements. The time was at hand when he expected the re- 
turn of the slaver. He had not the slaves. 4UL.ooking round on the 
peaceable tribes about him, for her victims, he singled out the Queahs, 
a small agricultural and trading people, of most inoffensive character. 
His warriors were skillfully distributed to the different hamlets, and 
making a simultaneous assault on the sleeping occupants, in the dead 
of night, accomplished, without difficulty or resistance, the annihila- 
tion, with the exception of a few towns, of the whole tribe. Every 
adult man and woman was murdered ; very young children generally 

* Of this, in respect to both sexes, we might have produced disgusting testimony 
more than a century old, relating especially to this part of tlie coast. In this, as in 
other things, their character had evidently undergone no essential change. 



24 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1824 — 1834. — Spanish Piiates- — Massacre at Bassa Cove. 

shared the fate of their parents ; the boys and girls alone were reserved 
to pay the Frenchman." 

King Boatswain was not such an untaught barbarian as some may 
suppose. He began life without hereditary rank, served in the Briiisli 
Navy till he attained the rank of boatswain, and afterwards gradually 
rose among his own people by his superior intelligence and force of 
character. In September, 1824, he seized 80 more of the Q,ueahs. 

In August, I82.5, the Clarida, a Spanish slaver connected with the 
factory at Digby, a little north of the St. Paul's, plundered an English 
brig at anchor in Monrovia harbor. Mr. Ashman, with 22 volunteers, 
and the captain of the brig with about an equal force, broke up the 
factory and released the slaves confined in it. A French and a Span- 
ish factory, both within five miles of Monrovia, uniting their interests 
with the Clarida, were soon after broken up, and their slaves released. 
The French factory had kidnapped, or purchased of kidnappers, some 
of the colonists, and attempted to hold them as slaves. 

In 1826, the Minerva, a Spanish slaver, connected with some or all 
of the three factories at Tradetown, had committed piracy on several 
American and other vessels, and obtained possession of several of the 
colonists. At the suggestion of Mr. Ashmun, she was captured by 
the Dragon, a French brig of war, and condemned at Goree. The 
factories at Tradetown bought eight of the colonists, who had been 
" panyared," and refused to deliver them up on demand. In April, 
Mr. Ashmun, assisted by two Columbian armed vessels, landed, broke 
up the factories, and released the slaves. The natives, under King 
West, then rose in defence of the slavers, and made it necessary to 
burn Tradetown. The Colonial government then publicly prohibited 
the trade on the whole line of coast, over which it assumed a qualified 
jurisdiction, from Cape Mount to Tradetown. In July, a combination 
to restore Tradetown was formed by several piratical vessels and na- 
tive chiefs. July 27, the brig John of Portland and schooner Bona of 
Baltimore, at anchor in Monrovia harbor, were plundered by a pirati- 
cal brig of twelve guns, which then proceeded to Gallinas and took in 
COO slaves. 

" The slave trade," Mr. Ashmun wrote about this time, " is the 
pretext under which expensive armaments are fitted out every week 
irom Ilavanna, and desparadoes enlisted for enterprises to this country ; 
in which, on their arrival, the trade is either forgotten entirely, or at- 
tended to as a mere secondary object, well suited to conceal from 
cruisers they may fall in with, their real object. Scarcely an Ameri- 
can trading vessel has for the last twelve months been on this coast, as 
low as six degrees north, without suffering either insult or plunder from 
these Spaniards." 

The batteries for the protection of Monrovia harbor were immedi- 
ately strengthened, the Tradetown combination was of short continu- 
ance, and the growth of the Colony soon changed the character, both 
of the coast and its visiters. 

Would the non-resistance policy of William Pcnn have succeeded 
better 1 It has been tried. The Peinisylvania Colonization Society 
commenced an unarmed settlement at Bassa Cove, about the end of 
the year 18:31. King Joe Harris sold them land to settle upon, and 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 25 

Attack on Heddington. — Mission at Cape Palmas in Danger. — 1834 — 1844. 

professed to be their cordial friend. In a kw months, a slaver arrived. 
Harris had slaves for sale ; but the slaver would not trade so near a 
settlement of Americans. This finished the temptation which Harris 
had already begun to feel. He fell upon the settlement in the dead of 
night, killed about twenty of the colonists, and while the remainder 
fled to save their lives, plundered their houses. A singular fact shows 
that he was not only fully and minutely acquainted with their peaceful 
character, but that he was encouraged by it to make the attack. One 
of the colonists owned a musket, and another sometimes borrowed it; 
so that Harris could not know in which of their houses it might then 
happen to be. He therefore refrained from attacking either of those 
houses. 

Would purely missionary establishments be more secure? This 
also has been tried. The Methodist station at Heddington, on the 
south bank of the St. Paul's, about 20 miles from Monrovia, was of 
that character. Gatumba, king of those lately known here as Men- 
dians, and whose stronghold was about two days' march north east 
from Monrovia, had in his employ, Goterah, a cannibal warrior from 
the interior, who, with his band of mercenary desperadoes, had deso- 
lated many native towns, and taken hosts of slaves for his employer to 
sell. He was evidently a remnant of the Giagas. One night in 1841, 
he made an attack on Heddington. His threats, to plunder the mis- 
sion property, take the children in school for slaves, and eat the mis- 
sionary, had been reported at Heddington, and arms had been procur- 
ed for defence. After an obstinate contest, Goterah was shot, while 
rushing, sword in hand, into the mission-house. His followers were 
soon seized with a panic and fled. Among the camp equipage which 
they left, was a kettle, which Goterah had brought with him, to boil 
the missionary in for his breakfast. 

The experiment was tried again. The Episcopal missionaries at 
Cape Palmas imagined that the peace and safety in which they had 
been able to live and labor for several years, were in no degree owing 
to colonial protection, and they resolved to act accordingly. They 
commenced a station at Half Cavally, about 13 miles east of the Cape, 
among the natives, but within the territory of the Colony ; another at 
Rockbokah, about eight miles farther east, and beyond the limits of 
the colonial territory; and another at Taboo, some 17 miles beyond 
Rockbokah. In 1842, some of the natives near these last named sta- 
tions seized the schooner Mary Carver, of Salem, murdered the cap- 
tain and crew, and plundered the vessel. The perpetrators of this out- 
rage soon became known to Mr. Minor at Taboo, and Mr. Appleby at 
Rockbokah. To guard against exposure and enrich themselves, the 
chiefs entered into a conspiracy to kill the missionaries and plunder 
their premises. The missionaries, being aware of the design, were on 
their guard, and its execution was deferred to a more convenient op- 
portunity, and as Mr. Appleby supposed, was at length abandoned. 
Meanwhile, Mr. Minor died. The natives within the colonial territory 
agreed to force the colonists to pay higher prices for provisions, and 
prepared for war. Early in December, 1843, Mr. Payne, at Half 
Cavally, finding himself surrounded by armed natives, from whom his 
life and the lives of his family were in danger, sent to Cape Palmas 
4 



26 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1482— 1723 —Roman Catholic Missions. 

for rescue. When his messenger arrived, the U. S. squadron had just 
come in sight. A vessel was immediately sent for his relief A force 
was landed, he and his family were escorted to the shore, taken on 
board and conveyed to Cape Palmas. On proceeding eastward, to 
punish the murderers of the crew of the Mary Carver, the squadron 
took off Mr. Appleby from his dangerous position at Rockbokah. The 
presence of the squadron soon induced the natives to make peace with 
the Colony ; but for several weeks it was supposed that the Cavally 
station could never be safely resumed. Both stations, however, have 
since been resumed, and two new stations have been commenced 
within the jurisdiction of the Colony. 

We may then consider it as proved, by facts of the plainest signifi- 
cancy, that up to the commencement of the year 1844, unarmed 
men, whether colonists or missionaries, white or black, native or 
immigrant, could not live safely in that part of the world without 
colonial protection. 



PART III. 

Missionary Labors in Western Africa, and their Results. 

Perhaps a clearer light may be thrown upon the subject, by a con- 
nected view of the various attempts that have been made, to introduce 
civilization and Christianity into Guinea. It need occupy but little 
space, as the history of far the greater part of them records only the 
attempts and their failure. 

The Portuguese, we have seen, commenced and prosecuted their 
discoveries under authority from the Pope, to con(|uer and convert all 
unbelievers from Cape Bojador to India. We have seen, too, what a 
pompous commencement they made at Elmina. Their establishments 
were at one time numerous along the whole coast of Upper Guinea, 
and as far north as Arguin. It is said that they everywhere had 
chapels, and made efforts at proselytism. The language of historians 
seems to imply that even the Portuguese mulattoes, when driven in- 
land from the Grain Coast in IGOl, built chapels in the interior, and 
strove to make proselytes. In Congo, they put their candidate on the 
throne by force of arms, and thus converted the nation. In Upper 
Guinea, they converted a few, and but a few ; as the negroes generally 
would neither give up polygamy, nor submit to auricular confession. In 
1007, Dapper states that the Jesuits found some on the Rio Grande 
who were willing to receive baptism, but not being prepared for it, it 
was deferred. The same year, he tells us, the Jesuit Bareira baptized 
the king of Sierra Leone, his family, and several others. He adds, 
about l()70, " the king still receives baptism, but practices idolatry to 
please his sul)jects." According to Bareira's own account, king 
Philij), whom he baptized, was a hundred years old, and was one of 
the Curnl)as. He professes to have made a more fivorable impression 
on the natives, because he did not engage in the slave trade and other 
branches of commerce, as all former j)riests there had done. Labat 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 27 

Roman Catholic Missions.— 1482— 1723. 

informs us, that in 1(306, Don Philip, a Christian, reigned at Burre, on 
the south side of the Sierra Leone river, and kept a Jesuit and a Por- 
tuguese Capuchin, who preached Christianity, but without effect. 
Villault, however, says, the same year, that " the Portuguese settled 
here have made many converts." Barbot asserts that the Portuguese 
had converted many in Buhii ; that is, many of the BuUoms, on the 
north of the river. The truth seems to be, that they persuaded a con- 
siderable number of individuals to receive baptism, but made no gene- 
ral impression upon the people ; .so that Labat, himself a missionary, 
considered their attempt a failure. As to the character of their con- 
verts, his Don Philip, keeping a Jesuit and a Capuchin to preach 
Christianity, and yet practicing idolatry to please his subjects, is doubt- 
less a fair sample. In 1721, one native of some consequence, nine 
miles up the river, is mentioned as a Romanist. He had been bap- 
tized in Portugal. The expedition for the conversion of the Jaloffs, 
we have seen, was defeated by the assassination of Bemoi. Still, they 
made some converts in that quarter. But everywhere north of Congo, 
their converts seem to have been confined almost wholly to the depend- 
ents on their trading houses ; and when these were given up, their re- 
ligion soon disappeared. 

The French missions, so far as we have been able to discover, com- 
menced in 1035, when five Capuchins were sent to the mouth of the 
Assinee. In a short time, and before they accomplished any thing, 
three of them died, and the other two retired to Axim. In 16^6, sev- 
eral Capuchins of Normandy were sent as missionaries to Cape Verde, 
one of whom had the title of prefect ; " but they left the country, be- 
cause they could not live in it." In 1674, another company of Ca- 
puchins attempted a mission, probably somewhere on the Ivory or 
Gold Coast ; but nothing is known of its results. In 1687, father 
Gonsalvez, a Dominican, on his way to India, stopped at Assinee, and 
left father Henry Cerizier, with a house and six slaves, to commence 
a mission. Cerizier died in a few months. In 1700, father Loyer, 
who had been sometime in the West Indies, was nominated by the 
Propaganda and appointed by the Pope, as Apostolic Prefect of Mis- 
sions in Guinea. He embarked at Rochelle, April 18, 1701, having 
with him father Jaques Villard as a missionary, and Aniaba, who, he 
says, had been given to Gonsalvez by Zenan, king of Assinee, and ed- 
ucated and baptized in France. The European Mercury announced 
his baptism in the following paragraph : — 

" Here is another pagan prince brought over to the Christian faith ; 
— namely, Lewis Hannibal, king of Syria, on the Gold Coast of Afri- 
ca; who, after being a long time instructed in the Christian principles, 
and baptized by the bishop of Meaux, the king being his godfather, 
received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper on the 27th of February, 
from the Cardinal de Noailles, and offered at the same time a picture 
of the Blessed Virgin, to whose protection he submitted his territory ; 
having made a vow, at his return thither, to use his utmost endeavors 
towards the conversion of his subjects." 

On arriving at Grand Sesters, Aniaba went on shore, and, Loyer 
says, "lived eight days among the negresses, in a way which edified 
nobody." They touched on the duaqua coast, and found the people 



28 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS, 

1482— 1723.— Roman Catholic Missions. 

to be cannibals, eating negroes frequently, and all the white men they 
could get into their possession. June 25, they reached the Assinee. 
After a short negotiation for the ground, a fort was built near the east- 
ern shore of the river, at its mouth, and a garrison left for its defence. 
Aniaba proved worthless. The mission accomplished nothing. Loyer 
left in 1703. The garrison found it difficult to maintain itself against 
repeated attacks, and in 1705 the whole establishment was given up. 

Who this Aniaba really was, is a matter of some uncertainty. In 
France, he was certainly represented as the son of Zenan, king of the 
Assinees, sent thither for education; and in this character, he served 
for a while as a captain in the French cavalry. Loyer, writing after 
his disappointment, and with evident mortification, merely represents 
him as one whom Zenan had given to Gonsalvez. Bosman, to whom 
we are indebted for the extract from the Mercury, says that he was 
originally a slave among the Assinees; that a Frenchman obtained 
possession of him and carried him home, intending to keep him for a 
valet ; that he had shrewdness enough to gull French bishops and car- 
dinals into the belief of his royal des^cent ; and that on his return, he 
was forced back into the service of his old Assinee master. 

Loyer, while there, made some missionary efforts. On one occasion, 
in the presence of the natives, he broke a fetish into a thousand pieces, 
trod it under his feet, and then cast it into the fire. They all fled, say- 
ing that the lightning would blast him, or the earth swallow him 
up. Seeing that he remained unharmed, they said it was because he 
did not believe ; on which he exhorted them to be unbelievers too. But 
his exhortations were in vain. His English editor asks, — " How 
would he have liked to have had one of his own fetishes so treated ? 
A negro, or a Protestant, would be put to death for such an offence in 
most popish countries." Villault, in 1667, had used the same argu- 
ment on the Gold Coast, and as he thought, with more success. He 
broke the negroes' fetishes, and told them to sign themselves with the 
cross, and the fetish could not hurt them. Many came to him and ex- 
changed their fetishes for crucifixes, which they evidently regarded as 
only stronger fetishes. 

Loyer represents the negroes as trickish and subtle, great liars and 
thieves, " the most deceitful and ungrateful people in the universe." 

The first Spanish mission to this part of the world, so far as we can 
learn, was commenced in 1052, when fifteen Capuchins were sent to 
Sierra Leone. Twelve of them were taken prisoners by the Portu- 
guese, who were then at war with Spain. The other three are said to 
have converted some of the people, baptized some of their princes, 
and built churches in some of their chief towns. They were reinforc- 
ed in 1657, and again in 1CG4. In 1723, the Pope's nuncio in Spain 
announced that the mission was extinct. In 1659, certain Capuchins 
of Castile attem[)ted a mission at Ardra, on the Slave Coast; but they 
soon gave it up, on finding that the king only pretended to turn Chris- 
tian, for the sake of encouraging trade with Spain. 

We iiiid no mention of any other Roman Catholic mission in Upper 
Guinea, till the late attempt at Cape Palmas. From the formal com- 
mencement of the mission at Elmina, in 1482, eleven years after the 
complete discovery of the coast, to the abandonment of Sierra Leone, 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 29 

Protestant Missions.— Moravian. English —1736—1816. 

in 1723, was 241 years of Roman Catholic missionary effort. After so 
long a trial, and for the greater part of the time in the most favorable 
circumstances for the missionaries, the religion of Guinea proved too 
strong an antagonist for the religion of Rome. What little impression 
they made on a few of their dependents, was soon effaced, and Roman- 
ism in Guinea has long since ceased to exist. A boastful view of Ro- 
manism and its missions, in the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith 
for June, 183'J, claims no mission in all Western Africa, nor any Cath- 
olics, except in the French settlement on the Senegal, any where be- 
tween Congo and Morocco. Probably, however, they might claim the 
inmates of a small Portuguese trading house or two, somewhere about 
the mouth of the Rio Grande. 

Of the Dutch, we only find reason to believe that they made some 
slight attempts to proselyta the negroes immediately around their 
castles and trading houses. \The Portuguese say that the negroes, 
" being barbarians, readily enough swallowed Cal\'in's poison ; " the 
meaning of which doubtless is, that the Dutch taught them to despise 
popery. Artus mentions attempts of Dutch residents to instruct them, 
and speaks of one who had been so instructed by a monk at Ehnina, 
that he was able to quote Scripture in reply. Bosman, a sturdy Dutch 
Protestant, says that if it were possible to convert them, the Romanists 
would stand the best chance for success ; because they already agree 
with them in several particulars, especially in their ridiculous ceremo- 
nies, their abstinence from certain kinds of food at certain times, their 
reliance on antiquity, and the like. The negroes seem to have rea- 
soned differently, and to have thought so small a change not worth the 
making. Bosman's remark, however, shows that the Dutch accom- 
plished but little among them. 

'j'he Moravians were the first Protestants who seriously undertook 
the work of missions in Guinea. In 1736, they sent out two mission- 
aries, one of whom was a mulatto, born in that country. His colleague 
soon died, and he returned. Their efforts were resumed from time to 
time, till 1770. In all, five distinct efforts were made, and eleven 
missionaries sent out. The mulatto accompanied several of the expe- 
ditions, and died in 17G9. Tlie other ten all died in Guinea, before 
they had been there long enough to be useful. Probably, all these 
attempts were on the Gold Coast. 

The first English mission to Western Africa seems to have been 
that of the Rev. Thomas Thompson, in 1751. He had labored five 
years in Ne.w Jersey, as a missionary of the English Society for Propa- 
gating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Of course, he must have felt the 
influence of David Brainerd's labors among the Indians in New 
Jersey; the most successful portions of which were from June, 1745, 
to November, 1746. With the consent of the society that employed 
him, Mr. Thompson went to Cape Coast Castle, on the Gold Coast, to 
labor for the conversion of the natives. He acted as chaplain of the 
Fort, till his health failed and he returned to England in 1756. Mean- 
while he had sent three natives to England to be educated for the min- 
istry ; one of whom, Philip Quaque, received orders in 1765, returned 
to Africa, and acted as chaplain of the Fort till his death, October 17, 
I8I6, aged 75 years. While he was chaplain, a school was set up 



30 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1787 — 1804 — Sierra Leone. — Capt. Beaver. — English Missions. 

in the Fort, at which some of the natives received the rudiments of an 
English education. We shall have occasion to refer again to Quaque 
and his influence. 

In 1787, an English company, of which Granville Sharpe was the 
most conspicuous member, commenced a colony of free blacks from 
America at Sierra Leone. The land on which they settled was pur- 
chased of the natives, who soon after attempted to drive them off", or 
exterminate them. When visited in 1789, half their number had per- 
ished by violence or disease, and the remainder had taken refuge on 
Bance Island. In 17!) I and 1792, the colony was reinforced by I ,'200 
blacks from Jamaica, who had at first settled in Nova Scotia, but 
found the climate too cold for them. The history of this colony is 
marked by an almost uninterrupted series of gross blunders and misman- 
agement ; but being a well meant enterprise, mainly on right principles, 
and sustained with true English pertinacity, it has continued to grow, 
and has been of im'mense value to Africa. For twenty years it watched 
the operations of the British slave trade, and furnished much of the 
information which induced the British Parliament to abolish it in 1807. 
And when that act had been passed, it could have been little else than 
a dead letter, had there not been a rendezvous for the squadron, a seat 
for Courts of Admiralty, and a receptacle for recaptured Africans, at 
Sierra Leone. But for this colonization of Africa with the civilized 
descendants of Africans, that act might never have been passed, and if 
passed, must have been nearly inoperative. 

In 1792, an attempt was made to promote civilization in Africa by a 
colony of whites, of which Capt. Beaver, an officer in the expedition, 
afterwards published an account, which we have not been able to ob- 
tain. We only learn that the attempt was made by a " philanthropic 
association" in England ; that they sent out three ships with 275 
colonists; that they commenced a settlement on Bulama Island, near 
the mouth of the Rio Grande ; that they employed only the free labor 
of colonists and hired negroes; that they suff'ered much from the 
African fever, many died, others returned, and in two years the colony 
was extinct. 

In 1795, several English families went to Sierra Leone, for the pur- 
pose of establishing a mission among the Foulahs ; but after arriving 
in Africa and considering the obstacles, they returned without com- 
mencing their labors. 

In 1797, the Edinburgh Missionary Society sent out two mission- 
aries, who commenced a mission among the Soosoos on the Rio Pon- 
gas ; the Glasgow Society sent out two, who commenced on the Island 
of Bananas ; and the London Society two, who began among the Bul- 
loms. In 1800, one of them, Mr. Brunton, returned, enfeebled by dis- 
ease; but afterwards engaged in a mission at Karass near the Caspian 
Sea. Mr. Greig, his colleague, had been murdered by a party of 
Foulahs. The other four had fallen victims to the climate. 

The Church Missionary Society, then called the "Society for Mis- 
sions in Africa and the East," sent out its first missionaries in 1804. 
They were (n^rmans ; for, after several years of effort, no English mis- 
sionaries could be procured. Two years before, the Sierra Leone 
Company had been seeking five years in vain for a chaplain. The 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 31 

English Missions.— 1804— 1816. 

missionaries arrived at Sierra Leone, April 14. A subsequent Report 
states, that they would have been instructed to commence their labors 
in the colony, had there not been obstacles to their usefulness there, of 
the nature of which we are not informed. As it was, they resided in 
the colony, and sought for stations beyond its borders. In 1806, two 
others were sent out, one of whom, Mr. Nylander, was induced to serve 
as chaplain of the colony, which he continued to do till 1^12. These 
two last were accompanied by William F'antimani, the son of a chief 
at Rio Pongas, educated at Clapham. The Report for 180S informs 
us, that the missionaries had continued their search for stations out of 
the colony, but had everywhere been met by insurmountable obstacles. 
That year, however, in March, they were able to commence two sta- 
tions on the Rio Pongas, Fantimania and Bashia. Fantimania in a 
short time was found impracticable. It was abandoned, and a new 
station commenced at Canoffee. In 1809, two others were sent out, 
one of whom soon died. One of the older brethren also died. In 
1811, two more were sent out. In ISI'2, three mechanics were sent 
out. Mr. Nylander resigned his chaplaincy, and commenced a new 
station among the Bulloms. In the autumn, the chiefs on the Rio 
Pongas held a palaver, in relation to sending the missionaries out of 
the country, on the pretence that their presence injured the trade, that 
is, the slave trade. In 1813, two of the mechanics and the wife of one 
of them died. Troubles with the natives continued. In 1814, they 
suffered much from sickness. The other mechanic and the widow of 
another died. The opposition of the natives increased. A new sta- 
tion was commenced on the Rio Dembia, and called Gambler. Mr. 
Klein, the missionary, finding no prospect of usefulness, removed to 
the Isles de Los, staid there half a year, and meeting insurmountable 
opposition, removed to Kapuru, on the continent, among the Bagoes. 
These events may have extended into the next year. Their attention 
was now turning to the colony. In 1815, seven male and female mis- 
sionaries and two educated natives were sent out. Four of the seven, 
two of their children, and two of the older members of the mission 
died. In January, the three principal buildings at Bashia, with the 
libraries, were burned by the natives. Mr. Hughes and his wife, one 
of the seven above mentioned, set out for home to save her life; but 
stopped at Goree, as she was unable to proceed. Here her health im- 
proved, and they opened a school. In 1816, four teachers with their 
wives were sent out. The Rev. Edward Bickersteth, Assistant Secre- 
tary, visited the mission. He thought the colony, which now contain- 
ed 9,000 or 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom were recaptured Afri- 
cans, the most promising field of usefulness. The " Christian Institu- 
tion," had already a goodly number of pupils, and they were erecting 
extensive buildings for its permanent accommodation. Governor 
Mac Carthy wrote : — " I conceive that the first effectual step towards 
the establishment of Christianity, will be found in the division of this 
peninsula into parishes, appointing to each a clergyman to instruct his 
flock in Christianity, and enlightening their minds to the various duties 
and advantages inherent to civilization ; thus making Sierra Leone the 
base, from whence future exertions may be extended, step by step, to 
the very interior of Africa." The division into parishes was in pro- 



32 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1816— 1815 — English Missions. 



gress. Bashia was given up. Preaching was commenced at Lissa 
and Jesnlu, near Canoffee. A chapel was built at Lissa. In 1817, 
the troubles from the natives continued to increase. The Society an- 
nounced its expectation of" being compelled to abandon all its stations 
beyond the limits of the colony. In 1SI8, February 10, the mission- 
aries, in a general meeting at Freetown, decided to withdraw from the 
Rio Pongas. Those stations were accordingly abandoned. It was 
also found necessary to retire from Yongroo, among the Bulloms, 
though only seven miles from Freetown, the capital of the colony. 
Goree was restored to the French, and the station abandoned. July 
14, a proclamation in the Sierra Leone Gazette announced the occu- 
pation of the Isles de Los, as British Territory. Mr. Klein was ap- 
pointed pastor there, closed his station among the Bagoes, and entered 
upon the duties of his office. The Society had now no station beyond 
the limits of the colony. It was intimated, that their relinquishment 
might be only temporary; but it has never yet been found advisable to 
renew them. 

According to the latest accounts, this mission now has 16 stations, 
(35 laborers, 1,560 communicants, 6,270 attendants on public worship, 
and 4,932 pupils in its 46 schools. One of these stations is at Port 
Lokkoh, ill the Timmanee country ; but whether in that part of the 
country which has been fully ceded to the colony, or that which is 
merely in a state of dependent alliance, we have not been able to as- 
certain. 

The English Wesleyan mission in Sierra Leone, which was com- 
menced about the year 1817, reports 30 congregations, 35 paid teach- 
ers, 300 teachers of all kinds, 3,086 communicants, 2,384 pupils in its 
schools, and an average of 6,700 attendants on public worship. 

Besides the Colony at Sierra Leone, the British Government had, in 
1842, about 1,500 recaptured Africans settled on the river Gambia; a 
part of them at Bathurst, on a small island at its mouth, and the re- 
mainder at Macarthy's Island, 300 miles up the river. The English 
Wesleyans commenced a station at Bathurst in 1821, and one at Ma- 
carthy's Island in 1832. The Gambia mission, including these two 
stations and several out-stations, reports 8 paid teachers, 440 commu- 
nicants, and 371 ])upils in its schools. 

The English VVesleyans have also a mission on the Gold Coast, the 
result of the labors of Philip Qua([uc and of the mission at Sierra 
Leone. After the death of Quaque, several European chaplains were 
sent out, some of whom died, and others soon returned. The school 
was generally kept up, and at length put on a permanent foundation. 
In 1831, some of the natives educated in that school, associated to- 
gether for the accjuisition of Christian knowledge. One of them, 
being at Sierra Leone, saw missionaries there, and brought back to 
his associates some idea of missionary operations. Through the 
agency of the Governor, they repeatedly requested the Church Mis- 
sionary Society to send them a missionary ; but in vain. At lengtii, 
a pious Wesleyan ship-master from Bristol became acquainted with 
them, and on his return to England, persuaded his brethren to enter 
this field, so white for the harvest. They sent out the Rev. Mr. 
Diinwell, who preached his first sermon in Africa, January 4, 1835, 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 33 

English Missions— 1840-1846. 

was attacked with the fever the next June, and soon died. Two 
others were then sent out, and died. Others took their places, till, in 
1840, ten, male and female, had been sent out, of whom only four sur- 
vived. In Iri45, they reported four stations, 59 paid teachers, 106 la- 
borers of all kinds, 754 pupils in their schools, and 792 communi- 
cants, in a population of some 20 English merchants and perhaps 
10,000 natives who had been for several generations subject to English 
laws. One of the stations at this mission is at Comassie, or Kumasi, 
the capital of the Ashantees, where a single missionary is attempting 
a school. 

Attached to this mission, is a station at Badagry, on the Slave Coast, 
which reports two stations, Abbekuta and Yoruba, in the interior, both 
unoccupied. The Church Missionary Society also reports two Euro- 
pean and one native clergymen and three native assistants at Badagry. 
The attempt at this place has grown out of the colony and missions 
at Sierra Leone. A considerable number of recaptured Africans who 
had been converted and civilized there, have returned to this, their 
native region. Some h.ive settled at Badagry, and others have gone 
into the interior. In consequence of their labors and representations, 
the Church Missionary Society established its mission there in 1S45, 
and the Wesleyan about the same time, — perhaps even earlier. These 
missions, sustained by civilized natives and defended by the guns of a 
British fort, have as yet been fruitful only in promises of success. 

In 1841, the English Baptists commenced amission on the Island of 
Fernando Po, near the mouths of the Niger. It was intended to coop- 
erate with the celebrated Niger expedition, and with the civilizing and 
evangelical influences which should follow in its train. It was expect- 
ed that the Island would be ceded to England, to serve as a basis for 
its operations on the Niger. The mission was located at Clarence, on 
its northern extremity. The Niger expedition returned, having suffer- 
ed an appalling loss of life, and accomplished nothing. The mission, 
however, was continued. A supply of assistants who could endure 
the climate was expected from among the converted and lately emanci- 
pated slaves of the West Indies, some of whom arrived and joined the 
mission in September, 1843. Several out-stations were occupied on 
the Island, and several excursions were made to the adjacent conti- 
nent ; and at length, one of them settled at Bimbia, near the Came- 
roons river. Meanwhile, the British government relinquished the plan 
of holding the Island ; and about the close of the year 1845, an agent of 
the Spanish government arrived, of whose orders and proceedings no 
full account has yet been published. It is known, however, that the 
Protestant missionaries were ordered to leave the Island, excepting 
one, who was allowed to remain for the present, to take care of the 
property. In March, 1846, they had not removed ; but death had been 
making fearful ravages among them; and the Romish priests who ar- 
rived nearly at the same time with the order, had begun to droop and 
be discouraged under the influence of the climate, and to think of aban- 
doning their enterprise. As to the continuance of the station at Bimbia 
after the breaking up of the mission to which it is an appendage, the 
Society has as yet expressed no opinion. 

A mission is, or is to be, commenced at or near the Old Calabar 

6 



34 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

1773 — 184G. — American Missions. 

river, by the Presbyterians of Jamaica. The Presbytery assert that Brit- 
ish Christians " see plainly that the fittest men for the evangelization 
of Africa are the Native Christians of the West Indies, headed, in the 
first instance at least, by European missionaries inured to the tropics." 
A missionary was on his way at the commencement of the present 
year, and several native Africans from Jamaica had been appointed to 
accompany him. " It is proposed to found a settlement either at Old 
Calabar, or some other suitable place in the surrounding country ; not 
so much as a settlement of Colonists, as to be a centre of operation 
where the moral and religious improvement of the natives may be 
promoted." 

The German Missionary Society has, within a very few years, com- 
menced a mission at Aquapim, near Accra, on the Gold Coast; but it 
reports little, as yet, except loss of life, " many difficulties, and much 
opposition." 

The first American who is known to have attempted any thing for 
the conversion of Africa, was the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, D D., of New- 
port, R. I. Becoming convinced that both the slave trade and slavery 
were unjustifiable, he began not only to preach, but to act accordingly. 
His plan was, to educate natives of Africa, and send them back as mis- 
sionaries. To this work, he appropriated the price of a slave that he had 
formerly owned and sold; besides making repeatedly, liberal appropri- 
ations from the proceeds of his theological works, and other resources. 
He corresponded with individuals and public bodies in America and in 
Europe; and among others, with Granville Sharpe, who afterwards 
became the founder of Sierra Leone. In August, 1773, he and the 
Rev, Dr. Stiles, afterwards President Stiles, issued a circular, inviting 
contributions ; in reply to which, funds were received to the amount of 
more than a hundred pounds, and several ecclesiastical bodies expressed 
their approbation. Several young men, natives of Africa, were put to 
school. With respect to one of them, he corresponded with Philip 
Quaque, the Negro chaplain at Cape Coast Castle, who expressed 
great joy at the prospect of their return to preach the gospel to their 
countrymen. These efforts were soon interrupted by the war of Inde- 
pendence, and though afterwards resumed, were never brought to a 
successful issue. Yet two of his "promising young men" were per- 
mitted to visit Africa in their old age. They were Deacons Newport 
Gardner, aged 75, and Salmur Nubia,* aged 70, who arrived at Mon- 
rovia in February, I82G, and died of the fever the same year. 

The next American attempt, of any importance, was the planting of 
Liberia, in I8'22; the history of which is before the world, and need 
not be repeated here. It has led to the establishment of two civilized 
republics, the planting of nearly thirty Christian Churches, and the 
conversion and civilization of hundreds of the natives; besides all that 
it has done for the suppression of piracy and the slave trade, and the 
general improvement of that part of the world. 

*lii the Census of Liberia lor 1843, he is called John Nubia. 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 35 

Recapitulation. 



PART lY. 

Recapitulation. — Conclusion. 

Such have been the leading facts in respect to Western Africa from 
the time of Ibn Haukal to the present day — about nine centuries. 
From the first purchase of negro slaves by Portuguese voyagers, has 
been 404 years ; from the first discovery of the negro country by the 
Portuguese, 399 years; from the discovery of Cape Mesurado, 384 
years, and from the complete exploration of the coast of Upper 
Guinea, 375 years; and this, even if we reject the accounts of the 
French, who profess to have had trading posts where Liberia now is 
500 years ago. At our earliest dates, the natives were idolaters of the 
grossest kind, polygamists, slave holders, slave traders, kidnappers, 
oflTerers of human sacrifices, and some of them cannibals. For four 
centuries, or five, if we receive the French account, they have been in 
habits of constant intercourse with tiie most profligate, the most licen- 
tious, the most rapacious, and in every respect the vilest and most cor- 
rupting classes of men to be found in the civilized world,— with slave 
traders, most of whom were pirates in every thing but courage, and 
many of whom committed piracy whenever they dared, — and with 
pirates in the fullest sense of the word. Before the year 1600, the in- 
fluence of these men had been sufficient to displace the native lan- 
guages in the transaction of business, and substitute the Portuguese, 
which was generally understood and used in their intercourse with 
foreigners ; and since that time, the Portuguese has been in like man- 
ner displaced by the English. By this intercourse, the natives were 
constantly stimulated to crimes of the deepest dye, and thoroughly 
trained to all the vices of civilization which savages are capable of 
learning. During the most fearful predominance of undisguised piracy, 
from 1688 to 1730, their demoralization went on, especially upon the 
Windward Coast, more rapidly than ever before, and became so in- 
tense, that it was impossible to maintain trading houses on shore; so 
that, on this account, as we are expressly informed, in 1730 there was 
not a single European factory on that whole coast. Trade was then 
carried on by ships passing along the coast, and stopping wherever the 
natives kindled a fire as a signal for traffic. And this continued to be 
the usual mode of intercourse on that coast, when the British Parlia- 
ment, in 1791, began to collect evidence concerning the slave trade. 
Nor were factories re-established there, till the slave trade and its 
attendant vices had diminished the danger by depopulating the 
country. 

It appears, too, that nothing has ever impeded or disturbed the con- 
stant flow of this bad influence, but Colonization and its consequences. 
The colony of Sierra Leone was planted as a means of resisting and 
ultimately suppressing the slave trade. The testimony which it col- 
lected and furnished during twenty years of labor and suffering, was 
the principal means of inducing the British Parliament to pass the act 



36 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

Rccapilulalion. 

of 1807, abolishing that traffic. From that time lo the present, it has 
rendered indispensable assistance in all that has been done to enforce 
that act. Through its influence, the slave trade is suppressed, slavery 
itself is abolished, and a Christian and civilized negro community* of 
40,000 or 50,000 persons is established, on the territory which ii con- 
trols. Liberia, only about one third as old, has expelled slave traders 
and pirates from UOO miles of coast, with the exception of a single 
point, brought a native population of 10,000 or 15,000, by their own 
consent, under the protection and control of a civilized republican 
government which does not tolerate slavery, and brought from 60,000 
to 100,000 more to renounce the slave trade and other barbarous usa- 
ages. Still later, another British settlement of recaptured Africans on 
the Gambia has begun to do the same good work in that region. Be- 
yond Cape Palmas, a kw British, Dutch and Danish forts overawe the 
natives in their immediate vicinity, and some of them protect missions. 
Elsewhere, the work is not even begun. 

The summary of Christian missions without Colonization may be 
given in a few words. The Roman Catholics come first. Omitting 
the French statement, of a chapel built at Elmina in 1387, let us begin 
with the Portuguese mission at that place, in 148'2. Romish missions 
continued till that of the Spanish Capuchins at Sierra Leone was given 
up in 1723, which was 241 years. They made no impression, except 
upon their immediate dependents; and what they made, was soon to- 
tally obliterated. Their stations were numerous, along the whole 
coast ; but every vestige of their influence has been gone, for many 
generations. 

Protestant missionary attempts were commenced by the Moravians 
in 1736, 110 years ago, and continued till 1770. Five attempts cost 
eleven lives, and eflfected nothing. The account of them scarce fills a 
page in Crantz^s "History of the Brethren." 

English attempts have been more numerous. That of Mr. Thomp- 
son, in 1756, amounted only to a chaplaincy, and sometimes, but not 
always, a school, till it received an impulse from Sierra Leone. That 
of Capt. Beaver at Bulama Island, in 1792, does not appear to have 
been distinctively of a missionary character, though it must have con- 
templated the introduction and diffusion of Christianity, as one of its 
results and means of success. It failed in two years, and with the loss 
of more than 100 lives. The mission to the Foulahs, in 1795, found, 
when at Sierra Leone, insuperable obstacles to success, and returned 
without commencing its labors. The three stations commenced by the 
London, Edinburgh and Glasgow Societies in 1797, were extinct, and 
five of the six missionaries dead, in 1800. The Church Missionary 
Society sent out its first missionaries in 1804 ; but it was four years 
before they could find a place out of the Colony, where they could 
commence their labors. They established and attempted to maintain 
ten stations, viz. Fantimania, Bashia, Canoflee, Lissa and Jesulu, on 
or near the Rio Pongas, Gambicr on the Rio Deinbia, Gambler on the 



• That is. Christian and civilized in respect lo the character of its government 
and institutions, arid the predominant character of the people ; though multitudes 
of the iiiliabitanls, but lately rescued from the holds of slave ships, are just begin- 
ning to learn what Christianity and civilization are. 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 37 

Recapitulation. 

Isles de Los, Gambler among the Bagoes, Goree, and Yongroo among 
the Bulloms. Goree was given up to the French and abandoned. The 
hostility of the natives, who preferred the slave traders to them, drove 
the missionaries from the other nine, and forced them to take refuge in 
the Colony of Sierra Leone, the only place where they could labor 
with safety and with hope. Here, without counting Sierra Leone and 
Goree, are eighteen Protestant missionary attempts before the settle- 
ment of Liberia, all of which failed from the influence of the climate 
and the hostility of the natives. Since the settlement of Liberia, at- 
tempts to sustain missions without colonial protection have been made 
at Half Cavally, within the territorial limits of Cape Palmas, and at 
Rockbokah and Taboo, in its immediate vicinity, and within the reach 
of its constant influence. The result has been already stated. The 
mission of the Presbyterian Board has been removed to Settra Kroo, 
about seventeen miles from the Mississippi settlement at Siiiou. As 
the Kroos have bound themselves by their late treaty with the Liberi- 
an government, " to foster and protect the American missionaries;" 
and as the mission is placed where no hostile act can long be conceal- 
ed from that government, it may be regarded as safe under colonial 
protection. The mission of the American Board has been removed 
from Cape Palmas, about 1 250 miles, to the River Gaboon, in Lower 
Guinea, and placed among a people, whom the missionaries represent 
as much superior to any within the region embraced in these re- 
searches. Its labors here commenced in July, 1642. It is yet uncer- 
tain, therefore, whether it will be able to maintain its ground, even as 
long as did the English mission at the Rio Pongas. An attempt has 
been made to establish an American mission at Kaw Mendi, between 
Sierra Leone and Liberia, where the vicinity of both colonies dimin- 
ishes the danger. The missionary has been once ordered out of the 
country by the native authorities, as an obstacle to the slave trade; but 
his neighbors at Sierra Leone have prevailed upon them to let him re- 
main. 'I'he missions on the Gold and Slave coasts, which have grown 
out of those at Sierra Leone; the Baptist and Presbyterian missions 
near the Bight of Benin, which rely on settlements of emancipated 
slaves from the West Indies as the indispensable means of their suc- 
cess ; the missions of various nations in South Africa, nearly all of 
which are within the Cape Colony, and the remainder among tribes 
under its influence and deriving satety from its power ; a search, which 
the Church Missionary Society is now making, for a station in the 
vicinity of Zanzibar; an attempt to open intercourse with the nomi- 
nal Christians of Abyssinia; a small English mission to the Copts at 
Cairo, and still smaller French mission at Algiers, — if this last yet 
exists, — complete the list, so far as we can learn, of Protestant mis- 
sionary attempts on the continent of Africa. To these, add the 
attempt of Capt. Beaver and others to promote civilization by a colony 
of Englishmen at Bulama Island in 1792, and the disastrous Niger 
Expedition of the British government, and we have the sum total of 
Protestant expeditions for the improvement of African character. 

The failure of the Niger expedition prostrates for the present, and 
probably forever, the hope which it was intended to realize; the hope 
of opening an intercourse with the less demoralized nations of the 



38 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 

Recapitulation. 

interior, by ascending that river. It has shown that we must reach the 
countries on the Niger from the west, by the route pointed out by 
Gen. Harper in 1817, and followed by the Portuguese mulaltoes in 
IGOO. Of all Atlantic ports, Monrovia is probably the nearest to the 
boatable waters of the Niger. The Atlantic termination of the route 
must be somewhere from Liberia to Sierra Leone, inclusive. Nor is 
there any reason to hope that this route can ever be made available for 
any purpose of practical utility, till Colonization has, in a good degree, 
civilized the country through which it must pass. We ?nust begin by 
civilizing and Christianizing the population on the coast.* 

And tliis work is going on successfully, by the colonization of the 
coast with civilized men of African descent. Sierra Leone has done 
much, notwithstanding its great and peculiar disadvantages. Its 
thousands, among whom all the safety of civilization is enjoyed, have 
already been mentioned. Liberia Proper has under its jurisdiction, a 
population of 15,000 or more, among whom any missionary who can 
endure the climate, may labor without danger and without interruption. 
Of these, more than 10,000 are natives of the country, in the process 
of civilization. Of these natives, about 1,500 are so far civilized that 
the heads of families among them are thought worthy to vote, and do 
vote, at elections ; 8531 are communicants in the several churches ; 
and the remainder, generally, are merely unconverted human beings, 
who have some respect for Christianity, and none for any other relig- 
ion. Among these, neither the slave trade nor slavery is tolerated. 
Besides these, nuinerous tribes, comprising a population of from 
50,000 to 100,000, and according to some statements, a still greater 
number, have placed themselves by treaty under the civilizing influ- 
ence of the colony ; have made the slave trade and various other bar- 
barous and heathenish usages unlawful, and many of them have stip- 
ulated to foster and protect American missionaries. The territory of 
these allied tribes is supposed to extend half way to the waters of the 
Niger. Several missionary stations have already been established 
among them, with perfect confidence in their safety. 

* If any are alarmed at the supposed expeiisivencss of our enterprise, we would 
Ruirgest to them, in tlie first place, that tlie ihonirht of leaving Africa forever in 
her present horrible condition, for the sake of avoidmg any e.xpense whatever, is 
unchristian, and not to be entiTtainud for a moment. Alrica must be converted ; 
and whatever expeiijie is really nece.ssary for that purpose, must be incurred. In 
the second place, we would call attention to the expense of the squadron of 80 
guns, which the United Slates is bound by tiie Ashbutlon treaty, to keep on the 
African coast for the suppression of the slave trade. According; lo an estimate of 
the Secretary of the Navy, Dec. 2!), 1842, tlie cost of two sloops of war and four 
brigs or schooners, is ,l!42'l,242 ; annual cnst or ie[)aiis and wear and tear, !|!4t1,000; 
otlier annual expenses ,'j!24I.I82 The whole slave tradinir coast of Western Africa 
is not more than ;i,(HJIt miles. At the prices hitherto paid lor territory lor coloniz- 
\i\g, (he annual exuenses of our squadron for two years would more than pay lor 
the whole of it. The expense ol watcliinir the slave fu<',tory at New Seslers witli 
the smallest vessel in ihe squadron, for two months, would be enoujrh to purchase 
the place, settle it with emancipated slaves from Tennessee, and thus stop the 
slave trade there fi)rever. The Briti>;h (rovernmeni, accoidmg to ])arliamentary 
returns in 1S.)4, were ex|ieudinir !|;.'>.i71t.(>8H annually lor the same purpnso. A 
small part of this, judiciously i^xpended, would be euoujrh for all the purposes of 
coloni/ation in Africa. 

t According to tiic census of September. 1843. 



COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 39 



The Maryland colony at Cape Palmas, though but twelve years old, 
and numbering only 700 or 800 emigrants, has also proved a safe field 
for missionary labor. 

The British government has settled about 1 ,500 liberated Africans 
from Sierra Leone, on the Gambia ; some of them at Bathtirst, near 
the mouth of the river; and some of them at Macarthy's Island, 300 
miles from its mouth. At both of these settlements, the Engli>h Wes- 
leyan missions are flourishing, and report, in all, 440 communicants. 

It has usually been supposed, that sensible and candid men may 
learn from experience. If so, it would seem that such a variety of 
experiments, extending through four centuries, and all pointing to the 
same conclusion, might suffice to teach them. Consider the numerous 
attempts by Romanists of different nations and orders, Portuguese, 
Spaniards and French, Capuchins, Dominicans and Jesuits, and by 
Protestants of divers nations and communions, to sustain missions 
there without colonies, and always with the same result. Consider, 
too, that every attempt to introduce Christianity and civilization by 
colonizing Africa with people of African descent, has been, in a greater 
or less degree successful. Every such colony planted, still subsists, 
and wherever its jurisdiction extends, has banished piracy and the slave 
trade; extinguished domestic slavery; put an end to human sacrifices 
and cannibalism ; established a constitutional civil government, trial 
by jury and the reign of law; introduced the arts, usages and comforts 
of civilized life, and imparted them to more or less of the natives; 
established schools, built houses of worship, gathered churches, sus- 
tained the preaching of the gospel, protected missionaries, and seen 
native converts received to Christian communion. Not a cvluny has 
been attempted, without leaeling to all these results. 

In view of these facts, — while we readily grant that some Liberians 
sing, pray and exhort too loud at their religious meetings; that some 
profess much piety, who have little or none ; that some of the people 
are indolent and some dishonest, and that some of their children play 
pranks in school, all greatly to the annoyance of white missionaries 
worn down by the fever, — still, we claim that the influence of Coloni- 
zation is favorable to the success of Missions, to the progress of civili- 
zation, and of Christian piety. As witnesses, we show, in the Colo- 
nies of Cape Palmas, Liberia Proper, Sierra Leone and on the Gam- 
bia, more than two hundred* missionaries and assistant missionaries, 
many of them of African descent, and some of them native Africans, 
now engaged in successful labors for the regeneration of Africa. We 
show the fruits of their labors, — more than five thousand regular com- 
municants in Christian churches, more than twelve thousand regular 
attendants on the preaching of the gospel, and many tens of thousands 
of natives, perfectly accessible to missionary labors. All this has been 
done since the settlement of Sierra Leone in 1787, and nearly all since 
the settlement of Liberia in 1822. We show, as the result of the 
opposite system, after nearly four centuries of experiment, and more 
than a century of Protestant experiment, a single station, with one 

* There were, in 1845, 65 EncrJish Episcopal and 35 Wesleyan missionaries, with 
salaries, at Sierra Leone, besides 300 or more who statedly rendered gratuitous 
assistance ; and unpaid assistants are numerous at several other missions. 



40 COLONIZATION AND MISSIONS. 



Conclusion.- 



missionary and perhaps one or two assistants, at Kaw Mendi, under tlie 
shadow of two colonies, and one mission which has retired from the 
field of our inquiries to Lower Guinea ; neither of which has occupied 
its ground long enough to exert any appreciable influence in its vicini- 
ty, or even to ascertain the possibility of effecting a permanent estab- 
lishment. 

We claim, therefore, that the que.stion is decided ; that the facts of 
the case, when once known, preclude all possibility of reasonable 
doubt. We claim that the combined action of Colonization and Mis- 
sions is proved to be an effectual means, and is the only known means, 
of converting and civilizing Africa. 

And who, that believes this, will not give heart and hand to the 
work ? Need we, after all that has been said, appeal to .sympathy ? 
Need we here to repeat the catalogue of horrors from which Africa 
groans to be delivered ? Need we mention the slave trade, devouring 
five hundred thousand of her children annually ; her domestic slavery" 
crushing in its iron bondage more slaves than exist in the whole wide 
world be.^^ides ; her ruthless despotisms, under which not even the in- 
fant sleeps securely; her dark and cruel superstitions, soaking the 
graves of her despots with human blood ; her rude palaces, adorned 
with human skulls; her feasts, made horrid with human flesh? Shall 
not a work, and the only work, which has proved itself able to grapple 
with and conquer these giant evils, be dear to every heart thai loves 
either God or man ? It must be^o. The piety and philanthropy of 
Christendom cannot refrain from entering this open door, and trans- 
forming those dread abodes of wretchedness and sin, into habitations 
of Christian purity and peace and joy. 



P. S. Information has just been received, that the whole country, 
from the Cavally river about 100 miles eastward to the Pedro, has been 
annexed to the Maryland Colony at Cape Palmas. This includes all 
the Episcopal missionary stations not previously within tire territory of 
the Colony. We learn, also, that Liberia Proper has lately purchased 
So or 40 miles of coast, which either includes or nearly surrounds the 
site of the Presbyterian mission at Settra Kroo. 



54 W 



i 






















<. ♦^TVT* jy" ^iJ, 'o . » • A <^ ♦'TV. • cG^ o '«>•»' 












V ,• 















,v'«. 




"-^0^ 

.^^ 










.M» .^^ 











^-.^•^ .'M/A-. 'Xk-^^ '. 



'-•i'ffl 


Mi 




WW 








s 




'^H^^^ 

,"ii^^ 






sIf-'t 




im 


jfflffijt 




'^ifcii 




;jjjj^ 


>mmi 










q 












jfe 






'■iii 

n IjliJuwiiiiin 






»8w 



iJiSifilffl 



